


this is water

by ranchboiii



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien!Keith, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Bad Flirting, Bouncer!Shiro, Culture Shock, Eventual violence, Everybody loves Ulaz, Fake Science, Humor, M/M, Penetrative Sex, Regris is trans, Spoilers: Antok LIVES !, also hello and welcome to baby’s first slowburn, check out these livejournal 2008 style tags, eventual smut too i think????, i have decided to continue this fic, probably a bit OOC, tentacles??? soRRY nOt SOrRY, this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-07-29 22:27:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 53,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16273646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranchboiii/pseuds/ranchboiii
Summary: Shiro is just a regular guy who stands at the door of the Atlas gay club and checks IDs. Then an unexpected guest pays him a visit.





	1. Chapter 1

The Atlas nightclub was alive with its typical throbbing heartbeat; Shiro stood watch at the door with Hunk, dutifully checking the IDs of the patrons that waited in a single-file mess (it could hardly be called a “line”), shivering in the chilly evening temperatures in their scant layers of dress and thick layers of makeup. Shiro alternated between flirting with cute, well-dressed patrons and charming too-young patrons out of line and back into the midnight streets, encouraging them to come back in a few years. Even if being a bouncer wasn’t hard work, it was at least entertaining.

The crowd died down and he crossed his bulging arms, trying to retain body heat now that there was less to do. A particularly handsome, callipygian patron with tousled ink black hair left the club, bidding the two bouncers a nice evening. Shiro was happy to watch him leave, although struggling with the emotional mishmash of immediately berating himself for checking someone out and then the follow up of self-assurance that he is allowed to look at people now. Hunk gave Shiro a knowing look, but allowed the silence hang for a moment, punctuated only by chirping crosswalks and a thumping bass dulled by the club’s soundproof walls before he finally interrupted it.

“So, how’ve you been?” He asked cordially, rubbing his hands together and breathing hot air onto them, smoky vapors of his breath disintegrating into the stream of the streetlights. “Everything been okay with the new apartment?”

“I’ve been alright,” Shiro shrugged, swaying a little on his feet, trying to counterbalance the weight of his words. “Thanks for asking. New apartment is good, it’s just.” He paused, fearful that he might choke on the words which had been the norm for the past month. It was a pleasant surprise when the emotions didn’t overflow like too much water in a glass. “It’s strange to be on my own again, you know?”

“Yeah,” Hunk nodded. “I bet. I mean, I wish I could relate; I’ve always had roommates. But yeah. Your ex skip town, then?”

Once again mollified by the fact he was finally able to talk about this, Shiro let his shoulders drop, unclenching his jaw enough to laugh. There was something warmly comforting about Hunk’s presence, posture, and straightforward way of speaking.

“Yeah,” he said, restraining himself from a sigh. “Adam was never one for the city.”

“This place isn’t even that big,” Hunk’s mouth drew to one corner, a small but physical way of taking Shiro’s side.

They shared a meaningful, tacit look, broken only when Hunk nodded toward an approaching group and folded his arms and took a more intimidating stance.

“Try telling him that,” Shiro sighed, taking the driver’s license so enthusiastically thrust upon him by the inebriated patron. After confirming that everything checked out, he handed it back. “Thanks, have fun in there.” 

“Come with us,” one of them whined.

“Don’t bother the bouncers, Rizavi, why must you do this every time?” A second, sober one scolded, sounding tired.

“Yeah have fun with us!” Another added.

“Wish I could,” Shiro winked, opening the door a little wider and gesturing them through the rhinestone-studded door.

“Anyway,” Hunk continued. “Just let me know if you need anything alright? I’m a decent chef and I love cooking for other people, so if you need a hot meal with friends I’m sure Lance and Pidge would be down to host a guest, yeah?”

“Thanks, Hunk,” Shiro smiled, feeling bolstered. 

The night dragged on into the wet and foggy crawl of early morning. Patrons began leaving around two. On their way out, they alternated between fondling Shiro and Hunk’s biceps, demanding hugs, and asking aggressive questions about public transit, ubers and lyfts.

“Do I look like Siri to you?” Hunk always told them, affixing it with a gentler, “Just head up Broadway and you’ll see a bunch of sedans hanging out in that area, ok? Get home safely.”

When everyone was gone and Atlas’ _Open_ sign flickered off, they walked in inside to help with clean-up. Lance dragged Hunk behind the bar so he could lean into him, nearly falling asleep on his shoulder.

“Rough night?” Hunk asked, ruffling Lance’s hair.

“Everyone is always so horny on Fridays,” Lance’s muffled voice droned. “So, so horny. Why is the work week so oppressive? So _re_ pressive? The fight against horniness continues.”

“You’re not that tired if you can still crack jokes, Lance,” Pidge, countered, tossing him a damp rag that landed wetly on his face. “Hunk, you’re on bar with Lance. Shiro, you’ll help me with tables, right?”

“Can do,” Shiro confirmed, taking up a rag and scrubbing down the sticky surface of the wooden chairs and tables.

Cleaning usually took the better part of the morning, but they managed to keep things simple and finished before the sun threatened to make an appearance. Lance and Pidge argued about whether or not to play music or not as they worked, and while Pidge was dying for some silence after their loud night, Lance continued to play _Man, I Feel Like a Woman_ on repeat like it was his second job.

Shiro locked the doors behind them as they filed into the street, free from the humid confines of the club. They walked together to their cars. Then Shiro headed home alone, turning off his car radio and listening instead to the whirr of his engine instead, thinking about what he and Hunk had talked about.

Pulling into the lot of his apartment he noticed that, once again, someone had parked in his spot. It was starting to become a pattern, and Shiro wasn’t sure if another patron simply hadn’t noticed that he’d moved in or if they just didn’t care. Swinging into an overflow lot a block over, Shiro heaved himself out of the car with a sigh.

The apartment waited for him like a concerned parent; all the windows were all dressed with curtains that sloped downward like furrowed eyebrows, and its skinny inlaid doors puckered like pursed lips. Unlocking the door, he announced his homecoming to his house and was extremely concerned to hear a response.

“Welcome home.”

Funny enough, he was less concerned that a murderer might be sitting in his living room, having casually burgled their way in, and more preoccupied with the idea that Adam had somehow gotten a key to his new place. Their break-up wasn’t exactly amicable, but he’d let himself believe it wouldn’t warrant a midnight break-in. 

He felt all kinds of stupid when he burst into the living room, baseball bat in hand.

“What the fuck!” He gave a cursory yell. “Who—” 

Shiro had fooled himself into thinking that he’d had the element of surprise on his side. He was wrong. Because nothing could have rivaled the unknowable thing waiting in his living room.

It was a man. 

“Wha,” Shiro’s words died on his lips. The man, who looked younger than Shiro, lay elongated over Shiro’s couch, his back to the door in a show of vulnerability. What caught Shiro offguard, more so than his unusually casual demeanor, was his handsome face and purple skin. His skin was purple. Shiro rubbed his eyes. Yeah, no, still purple. 

“Sorry to just, like,” the man gave a vague wave of his hand. “…Be here. I didn’t mean to freak you out.” 

The man was wearing a tunic woven from a vantablack fabric that made him stand out against the pale beige of Shiro’s walls, in sharp, swirling patterns that Shiro had never seen before in his life. It was conservative like armor, but regal in its cut and fit.

“You are an alien,” Shiro declared as if it were a reasonable response to the man’s statement. He observed once more his skin, which was a dusty shade of purple, like the kiss of dusk before the sunlight was truly gone and the moonlight became king. It was actually quite becoming.

“Yeah,” the man sighed. “I’m just a big fan,” he shrugged innocently, as though it would clear up everything.

Shiro’s heart sunk. “A fan…?” 

“Of your work,” he elaborated. “I’m Keith, by the way.”

“Keith,” Shiro chewed on the banal, mundane name. “That’s not a very—” 

“My dad was human,” Keith supplied. “I get that a lot."

“Right,” Shiro said, wondering why and how they were having this conversation. “E-explain yourself. What work could you possibly be a fan of? Why are you in my house?”

“It’s just so hard to find good workers who can read people, you know?” Keith started, uncrossing his legs and then re-crossing them with the other leg on top this time. “But you do it so effortlessly. You’re good at checking official documents, excellent at assessing patrons, and you’re. Well you’re stacked, man.”

Shiro’s head spun with the fact that a purple alien named Keith was in his house, complimenting him for his work as a _bouncer_ at a gay night club, and was also praising his physique.

“You’re,” Shiro tried again.

“I’m in your house because I want to offer you a job,” Keith concluded. “As my personal bodyguard.”

Shiro let the baseball bat clatter to the floor. Its clank, rattle, and prolonged roll spoke volumes louder than he could.

“I’m not following,” Shiro apologized. For what it was worth, his fight or flight senses had stopped fizzing enough to allow him to take a seat in the adjacent recliner that played kitty korner with the couch. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees praying that god or gravity bring him back to reality. “I’m not anyone special. I’m just a. I’m a door guy.”

“Well I’m a guy with a lot of doors,” Keith reasoned. “Doors that need opening,” Keith started to gesture with two fingers, scissoring them wide open. “Doors that need closing,” he continued, curling the two fingers in toward his palm. “Doors that need _protecting_ ,” he finished with a shrug and a clenched palm. There was something very lewd about all of it but Shiro wasn’t quite ready to go there. “What job could be more qualifying than ‘club bouncer? I've been to enough clubs to know the difference.”

“Do they have clubs in space?”

“I'll have to show you them sometime,” Keith purred. “Though none of them have bouncers as lovely or as established as you.”

“ _Established_?” Shiro stretched the word in his mouth in disbelief, purposefully ignoring the former comment.

“You’re of a military disposition, yes? Honorably discharged. I’d call that a plus.”

“How do you—”

“It’s written all over you,” Keith said. “And it’s on your resume, which I found uploaded to an internet database called _monster.com_. I had originally accessed the same website for other purposes entirely but that’s when I found you. It’s a great resume,” Keith congratulated, sitting up and reaching behind him to pull out a little high-tech tablet that flickered to life with a PDF of, sure enough, Shiro’s Curriculum Vitae.

“You must understand that this is very strange and sudden,” Shiro said, the corners of his eyes pinched and begging for sympathy.

“It’s just a job offer. A yes or no will suffice. I just wanted to visit in person before my people get to you to do it with their begging, supplying, manipulating, et cetera. Et cetera, you know? Hungry bureaucrats can get kind of unpleasant.”

Shiro nodded reluctantly, acknowledging the truth in Keith’s statement.

“You seem fairly lithe yourself,” Shiro approached from a different angle, having relaxed some. “Why would you need me?” 

“I’m flattered,” Keith said, touching a hand to the dark purple stripe that ran up his right cheek. “But in the timeless words of _Chicago_ ’s Velma Kelly, ‘I simply cannot do it alone.’ The market’s gotten diluted with bad eggs, it’s hard to find reliable people. And even the ones you think are trustworthy will simply turn around and attempt to stab you in the back with a glittering Luxite blade.” Shiro agreed, nodding emphatically until Keith got to the Luxite blade part. “Anyway, the long and short of it is that my team needs more good people. I need you,” he said, posture effortlessly languid, chest puffed out and confident, eyes patient but fiercely determined.

“God,” Shiro exhaled, taking in Keith’s words. He came on strong and callous but there was something undeniably genuine about the persona. “We’ve just met, but I can tell you’re hard to say no to.”

“I get that a lot,” Keith said, the ghost of a smirk on his face. “I will also pay you double your current salary.”

Double salary hit Shiro squarely on the tender spot of his emotional guts, right next to where he stored all his anxiety about a 401k and right above where he was saving up money for a dog. Double salary meant he could renew his gold star membership at the gym. Double salary meant smoothies every time he went to the gym. _Every time._

Shiro looked around the hollow shell of his apartment, predominantly empty, largely soulless, and still smelling like whoever lived here last. New places were always the result of love gone sour, making them feel like the disappointingly easy solution to a complicated math problem. 

He sat up straight, absently patted his thighs a couple times to break his silent tension. He looked at Keith, who was quiet in a dutiful, natural way. But something secret about his stance and the set of his shoulders read adventurous. 

Before Adam, he loved adventures. After Adam, he was starting to remember he was still in love with them.

“When would you like me to start?”

“My ship is in the parking lot.”

Shiro made a noise somewhere between an incredulous snort and an aggravated grunt; of course Keith was the one who’d parked in his spot. “You want me to leave now? I just got _off_ work.”

“That’s true,” Keith paused in thought. “A two-weeks notice is customary, right?” 

“You seem to be extremely well-versed in Earth culture,” Shiro noted.

“My dad, remember? That and the internet is very America-centric,” Keith noted. “Don’t have much of a choice but to assimilate to its niche humor.” 

The statement was very poignant for someone who had just been quoting a broadway musical with alacrity, but Shiro wasn’t going to disagree.

“I’m close with the people I work with, it should be fine if I leave work on short notice,” Shiro said. “But I’ll need more time: they’re my friends, and the weekends are busiest. I’ll at least have to work tomorrow’s Saturday shift.”

“That’s fine,” Keith nodded. “After that, we’ll be off.”

Shiro didn’t really know where “off” was, but for sixty thousand dollars a year, he’d be happy to find out.

Keith swung his legs under him and stood up, dusting off his lovely, indescribable tunic. Politely, Shiro rose with him.

“I guess I should thank you?” Shiro said like a question, conflicted that Keith had broken into his house to give him a cool alien bouncer job. He offered his hand to shake.

“The other way around. And please, let us consummate this deal with a traditional Galran gesture,” Keith insisted, spreading his arms wide and friendly, the universal suggestion of a hug. Nervously, afraid that he would be breaking tradition or customs, Shiro obediently stepped into Keith’s arms and gave him an ultimately awkward hug.

When they separated, Shiro could swear that Keith’s eyes had gotten a shade brighter.

“I’ll see you on Sunday,” Keith promised. He gave Shiro’s cheek an affectionate pat. “Have a good shift at work. Get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” Shiro droned, watching Keith wave goodbye and jump from his third-floor living room window.

The sky was just starting to lighten with dawn, a cold glow of pale blue and light pink clouds. Shiro watched the Hyundai Ioniq in his parking spot pull out and transform into a pointy alien spaceship that was all planes and ridges, taking off in a westward flight without a single sound.

“Haha,” Shiro said, exhausted, laying down in bed and snuggling into his blankets. “What a crazy dream.”

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omfg i'm so sorry this is so ooc. a lot of not so great things have been going on in my life recently; i'm trying to counterbalance it with sheith and humor lol. there could be worse coping mechanisms, what can i say
> 
> this is intended to be a standalone but hey! i'm changeable
> 
> anyway! I hope you have a great day !


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so my imagination got a little away from me and. i think that this is the fic that i need right now! 
> 
> well i've written quite a bit more so i suppose i'll update once a week or so??? please join me for this ooc space comedy romp. these nerds are gonna fall in love

Shiro found himself at work the next night, early to help prepare the bar and line, feeling conflicted about his wildly surreal dream. To try and subdue the confusing loop that replayed in his head, he took to washing the dishes with renewed fervor. Hunk dried them in tandem, which Shiro focused on being grateful for. All the while, the greatest distraction he could ask for was Lance and Pidge fighting over which Spotify playlist would be broadcast for the night.

“We’re playing the _You, Me, and Bowling for Soup; a 2007 bacchanale_ playlist tonight, Pidge,” Lance declared, batting at Pidge’s hands while she tapped away at the laptop.

“It’s sweet that you think that, Lance,” she sneered. “But I haven’t gotten tired of the _Ambient Modular :: Velocipede Whimsy in Space-Time_ playlist.”

Although it didn’t make a ton of sense to Shiro why their playlists needed to be so niche and aptly named, he could appreciate the finesse it took to find enough songs to match such specific titles. On the other hand, he considered it reasonable that he only had three playlists he cycled through: _Workout 2018, Workout 2017,_ and _Liked Songs_ ; and he wasn’t ashamed that Peter Gabriel shared all three of those playlists with both Pitbull and the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. 

“Which one has ‘Sex Over the Phone’ on it?” Hunk asked, shelving four steins and bringing Shiro out of his thoughts.

Lance threw his hands up. “What the _hell_ are you on about?” 

Pidge agreed and shook her head. “We’re not listening to _The Best of The Village People_ again, Hunk. That was a one-time thing for your birthday.”

At least they were united on something.

“They’re so mean.” Hunk pouted, but the truth was that he and Shiro hardly got to listen to the music much anyway. Through the protective layers of club walls, harmonies were the first things to go, closely followed by melodies, the only thing strong enough to permeate them being a ripping bass that rivalled a tectonic plate shift. Or when it was someone’s twenty-first birthday.

“They love their music,” Shiro shrugged, trying to establish a neutral position but ultimately sounding like an old man, which Pidge and Lance made sure to capitalize on with myriad variants on the word _dad_. 

With the tables cleaned, lights dimmed, and music selected through a fair but arduous eight rounds of rock, paper, scissors, the four of them gathered round a table for the final staff meeting before doors opened.

“Alright everyone,” Pidge started, hands on her hips, one hand absently playing with the studs on her belt. “It’s our busiest night of the week and I want everyone to have a good time. That includes Lance,” she stressed this by wacking Lance several times on his back. “Last night everyone was horny for the weekend and Lance took the brunt of it. Shiro, Hunk, try to back him up a little if you can. Cool?”

“Very cool,” Lance agreed, gingerly anticipating another flurry of blows from Pidge. 

“Sorry we couldn’t help more, Lance,” Hunk apologized. “The line was pretty crazy last night.”

“And it’ll be crazy again,” Pidge promised. “Just try to pop in every now and then, yeah?”

“Deal.”

“Anything else before we welcome our guests?”

“Just one thing,” Shiro said, raising his hand.

“Go for it, Shiro.”

Although he’d fallen asleep the previous night convinced that he’d dreamt Keith up in a whirlwind of exhaustion and the crunchwrap supreme he’d eaten, deep inside Shiro knew that Keith had been real. It was a fact that sat in a box labeled _DENIAL_ in a shadowy, easily forgotten corner of his mind, right next door to “daddy kink” and “ability to swing dance”. But occasionally, a lightbulb would flicker on and illuminate the dark corner, reminding Shiro that there were things he needed to confront (and that he wasn’t half bad at swing-dancing).

The lightbulb was called _GUILT_. Or maybe it was called _COVERING ALL THE BASES_. Either way, Shiro knew what he had to do, even if it amounted to nothing in the end.

“I, uh, recently stumbled into some work. A new job, I think. I have a trial period coming up, and I’ll need to take a week or two off. Is that alright?”

The three looked at him with expressions that were shocked, delighted, and unmistakably curious. Shiro couldn’t hope to curb them all.

“Of course, Shiro, that’s great news!” Pidge squealed. “What’s the job?”

“I actually, uh, can’t say,” Shiro said, which was the truth. He literally had no clue what he would be doing. Keith had mentioned “bodyguard” and “many doors” but those were just words and not a job description. It had apparently sufficed for Shiro at four a.m. but it would not be enough to convince a genius like Pidge at seven p.m. The arc of her eyebrow said so itself.

“Oh, because of the trial period?” Hunk supplied.

“Yes, exactly,” Shiro lied, grateful.

“Congrats, man,” Lance nodded. “Can’t wait to hear all about it. When do you start?” 

“Tomorrow, I think.”

“There’s a lot of vagueness going on here, so I’ll be operating on the assumption that you have finally listened to my advice and are finally taking up farming and/or camwork,” Pidge stated, standing up and rushing to the bar to pour four modest shots. She distributed them evenly and they held them high. “Whichever it is, good luck. Alright then, tonight’s for Shiro. To his future!”

*

Clean up took the full two hours that night, and dragged even longer due to the impressive array of garbage left behind by inebriated patrons. Pidge and Lance leaned against Hunk on either side and they all hobbled to the parking lot together.

“Good work tonight,” Pidge slurred. “We made it.”

“Thanks for helping me up at the bar Shiro. Especially when you covered my ass by convincing that guy I was a Sagittarius.” Lance sighed. “I’ll miss having you around.”

“No kidding,” Hunk said, sitting down and firing up the car. “That line is so much more manageable with two people. We’ll have to ask someone to fill in.”

“Maybe Kinkade’ll do it?” Shiro offered. “ _m.f.e_. has a huge weekend staff, plus we were in basic together. He owes me a favor or two.”

“That could work,” Hunk tapped his chin in thought. He was right in the middle of asking Pidge and Lance what they thought when he turned and saw they were both fast asleep. Shiro and Hunk gave each other a gleaming, fond smile, then parted ways.

In his car, Shiro elected to skip on the Taco Bell that night and aimed straight for home. 

To his pleasant surprise, his parking spot was blissfully empty of unknown cars. The sheer relief of it carried him up the stairs and over the threshold, even humming a little as he flipped the lights on.

The blithe feeling was short-lived.

“Welcome back,” Keith said from his kitchen table.

“Ahh!” Shiro yelled, immediately taking a defensive stance and accidentally knocking over the rack that held the tray that held all his keys. Its loud, metal tumble echoed into the silence of morning with all the grace of a police siren and simultaneous whale song. It did nothing to disturb the patient, relaxed look on Keith’s face.

“You’ve got great reflexes,” Keith mused approvingly, as though Shiro knocking over the rack was something he’d done on purpose.

Shiro covered his mouth in shame having yelled so loudly at the crack of dawn when most people were still asleep. He closed the door behind him so gently, hoping it was atonement for his loud sins. He had only just moved in here, and he wasn’t looking to make enemies of his neighbors so quickly.

“What are you doing here!” Shiro hissed. Unsettled, he wrestled off his boots and then went straight for the fridge to pour himself a glass of orange juice to help take the edge off. 

“You said you’d be ready after your Saturday shift. So here I am,” Keith explained with a humble shrug.

“Keith, I haven’t slept yet. I’m sorry, I’ve got to get a good night’s sleep and then I’ll be ready. Do you want juice?” Keith shook his head no and Shiro took a seat at the table in the only other chair.

“I had forgotten about sleep,” Keith admitted quietly.

“Do you not sleep?” 

“No, no, I definitely do,” Keith assured. “I suppose I just got excited about seeing you again.” 

Keith’s sincere frankness was a charm point that Shiro found he deeply appreciated. He rubbed his eyes and tried to will away the warm feeling that welled up and pushed at the walls of his chest like an insistent balloon.

“That’s very sweet,” Shiro said finally. “Where did you park by the way? I didn’t see your, um, transportation.”

“I felt bad about parking in your spot, so I had my mom drop me off.” 

“Your _mom_?” Shiro almost choked on his juice. Just how old was Keith? Did he measure it in alien years? How did that stack up against human years?

“Yeah,” Keith said, pulling out his high-tech tablet, tapping the screen a few times. “I told her to pick me up in ten minutes but you need sleep first. I’ll let her know we need more time.”

“Okay,” Shiro said. “How old did you say you were, Keith?”

“I didn’t, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't ask me in such a patronizing way,” Keith said. “I just turned fifty. In human years I believe the equivalent is twenty-five or so? Usually dividing by two gets you pretty close.”

“I see,” Shiro droned. 

Keith hummed and tapped his tablet a few more times. “Anyway, mom says she’ll be back in half a quintent. Plenty of time to rest.”

Shiro was particularly good at compartmentalizing which is why he could ignore whatever “half a quintent” was, instead cutting straight to the chase: “Where are we going then? What should I pack?” Shiro’s head started to spin with all the unanswered questions again. Keith was an alien! 

“Just an overnight bag should be good,” Keith said, not answering the first question. “And any toiletries that you can’t be without, those are the hardest things to find when you’re off, you know?”

“Off,” Shiro echoed, that specific word itching at his brain. He downed the rest of his juice. “Right then. I’ll pack now so we can take off first thing.”

“Excellent. I appreciate a man who prioritizes punctuality.”

Shiro stood up to wash his glass. Something clicked.

“Wait,” he said, right when the soap started to get all sudsy. “Your mom’s not picking you up until after I sleep?”

“Not picking _us_ up until after _we_ sleep,” Keith amended.

“Right. So. Does that mean you’ll be staying here?”

Keith’s eyes lit up again like the night before and Shiro didn’t miss it this time. He touched his hand to one of the stripes that ran up his cheek and seemed speechless for a moment, as if he hadn’t realized the consequences of his own plan. Perhaps asking his mom to make two trips was asking too much.

“Th-that’s correct,” Keith said confidently. “I thought we could engage in the classic Galra tradition of trust-bonding. It’s an extremely common practice prior to starting work like this, you know.”

Shiro didn’t know, but he was loathe to insult a culture he knew nothing about, especially on the precipice of his new and lucrative employment, standing before his eccentric and generous employer.

“Alright then.” Already he felt foolish for simply agreeing. But then he recalled that hugging was a Galra custom; perhaps “trust-bonding” wasn’t that much more than doing trust falls into each other's arms. Even if that wasn’t the case, the idea at least made Keith feel less different.

Shiro made his way to his room to pack a bag and get extra sheets to set Keith up on the couch. With a pile of blankets near the door, he started on his duffel bag, quickly finding himself arrested by more questions.

“Hey Keith,” he called. “Could you come here for a second?”

“Hello,” Keith waved, nervously stumbling in through the door. Shiro noticed again the remarkable length of his legs. “What is it?”

“I need to know if it’ll be cold where we’re going. Should I bring a sweater?”

“Hmm,” Keith hummed. “A sweater would be good. It might not be all that cold, but a sweater could be good.”

Once again puzzled by Keith’s cryptic language, Shiro simply decided to pack as many layers as he could. After packing enough coordinating clothes to get him through any season, he dropped his bag next the door.

“Alright,” Shiro said. “That should cover it.”

“Great. Spectacular. Brilliant,” Keith listed. “You are fast.”

With the weight of the day finally settling over him, Shiro felt his eyelids grow heavy and patience grow thin. He needed sleep desperately.

“Can you make your own bed? Do you need help?” Shiro asked. “Actually, I’ll take the couch, you can sleep here. I’ll change out the sheets real quick.”

“No!” Keith chirped.

“Shh!” Shiro hissed, eyes flashing toward the clock that read 4:33 a.m. 

“No,” Keith repeated, much quieter this time. “We must engage in the classic Galra tradition of trust-bonding. We must trust-bond!” 

“Please,” Shiro said, pained and close to whining. “Tell me more.”

“We must sleep in the same bed, limbs entangled in such a way that embodies organic languor. There in that heady convalescence, we shall trust-bond.”

Shiro knew for a fact that they were both blushing. He’d just never imagined that Keith’s purple could get duskier. He nearly dropped his head in his hands, but then he realized how that might look to Keith as a new employer. Wanting to be open-minded and not fired before he could even get paid, Shiro sighed in resignation and began stripping out of his work clothes.

“Alright then, I’ll just—” 

“N-not like that!” Keith yelped. 

“Not like _what_?”

“... _Not naked_ ,” Keith whispered. Well, at least Shiro wasn’t misconstruing what trust-bonding was anymore.

“I’m just changing into my pajamas,” Shiro explained with patience thinner than silk thread. In saying so, he noticed that Keith’s lack of foresight probably meant that he was without a change of clothes. He took a deep breath. “Do you need pajamas?” Keith nodded and Shiro tossed him a shirt he never wore from his closet, a pristine white one that he’d gotten for running a marathon in spring. Keith left to change in the kitchen, and Shiro was grateful for the privacy it afforded both of them.

In his pajamas, Shiro crawled into bed, relieved at the cool softness of the blankets and soft coolness of the mattress. He took off his socks and reveled in the finally-no-socks feeling, nearly falling asleep before Keith came back.

“I’m sorry, if you’re uncomfortable then I really can take the couch,” Keith said guiltily. It was very thoughtful but at this point Shiro just wanted to sleep. 

“It’s fine, just c’mere,” he said, looking up to see Keith at the edge of his bed with just his shirt on. It was way too big on Keith and Shiro tried to ignore that as much as he possibly could. 

Keith hopped into bed and under the covers as if the devil were chasing him. For a moment he stilled, looking expectantly at Shiro and continuing to do so until Shiro took the cue and opened his arms. Keith snuggled against him until he was flush against his body, nuzzling into his neck. It was such an intimate position that Shiro’s body ached with that familiar old need for skin to skin, yearning for the bodily closeness. Absently, he placed his hand on Keith’s lower back and held him there, trying not to think about how, perhaps if not purple, Keith might be just his type.

“Thank you again, uhm… ” Keith trailed off. 

“Oh,” Shiro said, noticing the reason behind Keith’s hesitation. “Do you know my name?”

“Yes, well no, I mean yes I do, it was on your resume of course, it’s just that, I’m not, I’m not sure how to pronounce it,” Keith said all in one breath.

“I’ve heard it all,” Shiro promised him. “Every iteration and mistake possible. Try me.”

Keith looked nervous, but Shiro’s prompting inspired the confidence he needed to give it a go. He wiggled his hips against Shiro’s not uncomfortably and puffed out his chest a bit, inhaling. What followed was not a painfully anglicized version of “Takashi Shirogane,” but rather a series of sharp and high-pitched screeching noises that Shiro had never in his life heard anything like before, stirring up his sensory input centers like they were stew. For a horrifying moment his esophagus was his cochlea, his phalanges were his eustachian tubes, and so on.

“ _Please_ ,” Shiro squeaked when his larynx wasn’t his nose anymore. “Call me Shiro.”

“Shiro,” Keith said, normally and fondly. “Thank you, Shiro.”

With that, Keith fell asleep in Shiro’s arms, head resting on his chest. Shiro felt his consciousness drift away from his body for a moment, still incredulous of his current circumstances. But, almost predictably, Shiro fell prey to his human needs and the man in his arms. They were off to a strange start as it was, and Shiro didn’t think that their relationship could get any weirder than sharing a bed, so he let himself drift off into a deep and surprisingly restful slumber.

 

***


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank y'all so much for your kind comments... i'm updating early just for the heck of it !!! 
> 
> it's time to go to space now !!!

The doleful melody of Earth, Wind, and Fire’s rendition of ‘After the Love is Gone’ woke Shiro from his slumber. It was a song he wanted to hate, especially considering he was still admittedly tender from his break up with Adam, but it was also a song that was unmistakably good and always had a place on his _Liked Songs_ playlist.

He hit snooze and turned off the shuffle option for his alarm music.

He was surprised his thoughts wandered that far before remembering that his arms were full of a purple alien named Keith who was also his new employer. Just wow. How was he starting to look past that already? But Shiro supposed humans could get used to anything, and he figured that the adaptability he was once praised for was helping him along in this highly unusual, unprecedented situation.

Taking a selfish moment, he leaned back to get a good look at Keith, whose angular, docile face was undoubtedly attractive. His hair, so inky black that seemed to swallow the light around it, was soft under Shiro’s wandering fingers. Carding through it and over the velvet of his alien ears, Keith began to stir against him, a very tiny noise escaping him that Shiro vowed to forget immediately. This was not a normal employee-employer relationship and he wasn’t about to let himself muck that up anymore by getting endeared to his boss’s _noises_ when he was technically older than him slash technically also younger than him.

“Five more dobashes,” Keith mumbled into Shiro’s chest, but all Shiro heard was “fif myr dbahshsahs” and the utterance left him concerned that he might need to learn a new language to communicate with aliens who weren’t half-human.

“Keith,” Shiro said, clearing his throat. “Your mom will probably be here soon.”

“Probably,” Keith agreed, tightening his arms around Shiro’s middle. 

“We gotta get ready,” Shiro pressed.

“Okay,” Keith said, wrapping his legs around Shiro and holding on for dear life.

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro stressed, somewhere between affected and nervous beyond belief. When Keith showed no signs of relenting, Shiro huffed and threw the covers off in one go. “That’s it,” he said, securing Keith and rolling them both out of bed. His feet carried them both toward the kitchen; he was at least going to have a solid breakfast before starting his new job.

“Eep!” Keith barked, shocked and possibly delighted at Shiro’s resolve and his own new relationship with gravity. “Where are we going? Wait, we didn’t finish trust-bonding!”

“How did we not finish?” Shiro asked, genuinely curious at what Keith would have him do next. With an erudite air about him, Keith made laudable eye contact when he told Shiro,

“We must kiss.”

“No,” Shiro said—that was the end of that. In the kitchen, Keith at last dropped from Shiro and onto his own feet, taken aback by the brusqueness of Shiro’s reply. Defiantly, Shiro let the silence hang in the air for a pregnant moment. “You wouldn’t know it from my resume, Keith, but I recently ended a long-term relationship with the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.” As he explained this, Shiro whipped pancake batter with enough irritation to threaten a spill. “It’s not you,” he said, voice softer after realizing how curt he sounded and how he didn’t want to make a mess of the counter. “It’s me. I know trust-bonding is important to you, and I’m sorry that I can’t follow it all the way through right now. Please understand.” Shiro poured three cakes onto the griddle and moved to face Keith.

Keith stared at him with something heavy in his eyes, something that weighed all the way down onto his shoulders. He was about to speak when a flicker of movement behind Keith caught Shiro’s line of sight.

“What is that?” He asked, trying to school the panic in his voice at the prospect of something else unexpected in his house; he wasn’t trying to start this simulation over again.

“What?” Keith looked over his shoulder. “I don’t see anything.”

“ _That_ ,” Shiro pointed. When Keith still didn’t notice anything, Shiro physically turned him around and came to a startling realization. “Oh,” he said, face growing hot. “That’s you?”

“Oh,” Keith said, finally understanding Shiro. “Yes. That is my tail.”

“How did I miss that last night?” Shiro wondered aloud, checking his forehead for fever and flipping the pancakes over in a light-headed daze.

“I’m sorry Shiro,” Keith said, his hands tugging his shirt down as if it could hide his shame and tail alike. “I definitely shouldn’t have asked you to do all those things without considering your feelings first. Galra have a terribly intimate culture, similar to the French. Are you familiar with the French?”

“More or less,” Shiro said, adding more pancakes to the grill.

“I will never ask you to kiss me again,” Keith promised, and his voice fell flat with the conviction and it made Shiro a little sad for whatever reason. “And I hope you can forgive me for being so selfish.”

“Of course I forgive you, Keith. Don’t worry about it any more. Thanks for respecting my boundaries,” Shiro smiled, plating up the first three steaming pancakes and handing them to Keith. “Hungry?”

Keith’s stomach grumbled loudly in response and he took the plate to the table with an excitement buzzing all around him. “I haven’t had pancakes since my father passed away,” he said quietly, and Shiro tucked the knowledge away for later. Setting out forks and syrup, he felt lighter watching Keith tear into his shortstack with little inhibition. 

They ate a companionable breakfast and then got dressed. Shiro was at a loss of what to do until Keith’s mom showed up, so he figured it would be a good idea to tidy up the place since it was always nice to come back to a clean house. Keith pitched in too, delegated to dusting the bookshelves until he got distracted by Shiro’s signed copy of _Radiance_.

“You like Catherynne M. Valente?” He asked, amused, amazed.

“She’s one of my favorite authors,” Shiro said, sweeping the kitchen floor’s diverse detritus into a dirty dustpan. “Absolutely incredible command of the English language.”

Pausing in his ministrations, Shiro watched Keith nod thoughtfully, reluctant to shelve the volume and continue dusting. Before Shiro could offer for Keith to borrow it, a warbling trill echoed throughout the room. Keith pulled his tablet out and looked to Shiro.

“Mom’s almost here,” he said, straightening up. “Do you have everything?”

Shiro put the broom away and picked up his duffel bag. He scanned the room and double checked his bag, confirmed with Keith.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m ready, I think.”

“You are,” Keith smiled, small and sincere. “Let’s go.” Shiro laced up the steel-toed boots he usually wore to work and Keith stepped into the pair of boots he’d left at the door. They traveled halfway up the calves of his long legs and Shiro complimented them, noting how they suited him.

“Thank you,” Keith said. “They’re actually Pplat-Yyorkers from the eJYlltrax galaxy; a pair of identical living organisms that grow with you. The future is wasteless, you know.”

The description left Shiro reeling, almost disgusted that Keith was openly wearing creatures on his feet. But when he considered it a bit more, Shiro supposed was wearing animals, too: his shoes were real leather. He felt extremely conflicted about it as he locked his apartment door behind him. Keith stood at his right, waiting patiently and tapping away at his tablet. 

“Hold on, I think I might change shoes—”

“Mom’s here,” Keith said, and just as quickly as he had spoken, a shadow fell over Shiro’s apartment complex. When he looked up, the sky was a cloudless blue that stretched for miles and miles. It was an ideal early spring day.

“Where?” Shiro heard himself say.

“Here,” Keith said, and he pulled Shiro flush against his side and pressed a big pink button on his tablet and suddenly they were no longer on the landing of Shiro’s apartment but traveling up through the sky on a trail of photons, flickering in and out of view and existence like ghost particles, traveling through the fourth dimension and somehow becoming the rainbow and then god and then back to the rainbow again. Or at least that’s how it felt to Shiro. For brief, fluttering moments he could see the houses and parks and buildings below him turn into miniatures, then turn into to dots as they breached the stratosphere.

Then they were inside a ship. In space.

Shiro knew it was a ship because he recognized the basic controls from his air force days—altimeters were all the same, so were radars. He knew they were in space because he could see the round, blue-green-brown marble of Earth right through the windshield, floating above the cookie-cutter shapes of North and South America. And of course he knew both these things because Keith was an alien. As confusing as it all was, the answer was quite clear if Shiro relaxed and faced facts.

“Did we just get beamed up?” He asked Keith, trying to stop his hands from their violent shaking.

“Nah, it’s more like the thing they did in _Galaxy Quest_ , to be honest,” Keith shrugged. It didn’t make Shiro feel better at all.

What did make him feel better was the steady and strong arm that Keith still had wrapped around him. With purpose, Keith guided him forward slowly and they began to make their way across what Shiro recognized as the bridge of the ship. Several (purple) bridgehands stood at attention while a handful of (purple) navigators sat at their respective posts, checking altitude and adjusting controls.

In the center of it all was a slightly raised platform. It was encircled by a round of orange screens suspended in the air, similar to Keith’s tablets. Symbols and ideograms flitted around the screens in an endless scroll, flickering into chunky shapes that Shiro could hardly equate to any human language he knew. 

A woman (purple) entered the bridge from stage-left and everyone stopped what they were doing to pay her reverence. The room fell quiet and an instinct buried in Shiro made him stand up straight despite his vertigo, had his arm twitching with an aborted salute. 

“As you were,” the woman said, her voice throaty and viscous like dark honey. As she drew closer, Shiro could see that she was pristinely dressed, wearing a protective armor that doubled as elegant and regal. A long, vantablack cape was fastened at her shoulders by shiny epaulettes that caught and carried the light of the bridge wherever she went.

“Hi mom,” Keith greeted, to Shiro’s unending shock.

“Hello Keith,” Keith’s mom said. “This must be…?” Shiro prayed that he wouldn’t hear a repeat of Keith’s attempt from earlier, his stomach couldn’t take it after his teleportation experience.

“Shiro,” Keith said. “He is called Shiro.” 

Keith’s mom fixed Shiro with a hard look that was difficult to decipher. She seemed austere and serious in a manner that was chiefly military but also in the way that moms could be. After silently appraising him, she came away with the same small smile as Keith sometimes made and that’s when Shiro realized he was looking at an older, feminine version of Keith. Their resemblance was uncanny.

“Nice to meet you,” Shiro said, extending his arm. Keith’s mom took it and shook his hand. “Haha, what a relief to know you all shake hands, too,” Shiro chuckled.

“We don’t actually, but since my husband was human I am familiar with some parts of your culture,” she corrected, her smile growing more genuine than just polite.

“Right,” Shiro laughed, feeling inferior and forgetful. He wasn’t going to last a day with the aliens.

“I digress,” she started. “I am Krolia, Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Fleet and Regent Ruler of the Galra Polity. The gratitude I have for your agreed service goes beyond words. Thank you for accepting a position in my son’s private task force.”

“I mean, thank _you_ ,” Shiro said, weakly gesturing toward Krolia. After all those titles, he was starting to want to go back into the rainbow god neutrino beam and return to his apartment so he could listen to The Village People for the rest of his days. That was more aligned with his social standing than whatever the hell he was doing here.

“Keith, how was your time on Earth?” Krolia asked, switching gears and placing a gentle hand on her son’s shoulder.

“Great,” he said. “Nostalgic. Fun.”

His word choice earned him another smile from Krolia. “Good. Now, go ahead and take Shiro to the armory, get him out of his fatigues and into something suitable for the hyperwarp, t-minus one varga.”

“Gotcha,” Keith nodded, turning around and taking Shiro with him. 

Exiting the bridge, they leisurely walked down a lengthy hallway with severe but ornate architecture. Simple, sturdy beams supported the main structure. Whatever foreign element the beams were made from, the metallic surface appeared purple from one angle and orange from another. Each beam was detailed with tiny, immaculate engravings that seemed to give off an acrid yellow glow.

“Wow,” Shiro said in awe, his eyes stuck to the hypnotic engravings. “Wow. Wow wow. Wow wow wow—”

“Shiro?” Keith stopped him, appearing nervous on his behalf.

“Thank you,” Shiro nodded, grateful to have been interrupted. “Words are a little hard to find right now. This is wild. This is your mom’s ship then? Or technically yours, too? Your mom said ‘regent’ right? I’m pretty sure she did and I’ve watched a BBC drama or two to know that she’s filling in for you then? So you’re going to be king or something? That’s crazy. King Keith. Nice alliteration. Also what is a Polity?”

“Hey, Shiro,” Keith said, putting his hands on Shiro’s shoulders. “I know this is probably crazy to you. I just want you to know that if, at any time, you don’t want to do this, you can just say so, alright? I’ll take you home whenever you’re ready, okay?”

“Okay,” Shiro whispered, his voice suddenly thin. “Thank you.” Keith did not let him go, kept him frozen with the brightness of his yellow and indigo eyes. “Thank you, Keith,” Shiro said meaningfully. When Keith pulled back, he laced his hands behind his back and started to answer some of Shiro’s other questions as they continued their walk down the hall.

“So a polity is technically any political entity, but it’s the functioning name for our current form of government. The Galra people have seen their legislative bodies take many forms, but the two most recent and notable ones are the dictatorship that lasted 10,000 years and the Ochlocracy that lasted 100 days.”

“How can a dictatorship last 10,000 years?”

“Unsurprisingly, that is a long story that can be saved for another time. But the short version is don’t do drugs.”

“Good to know,” Shiro said, mentally crossing cosmic whippets off his list of things to do in space.

“In any case, politics wise, things have been quite rocky lately. My mom is ruling in my stead until I turn one hundred, the legal age requirement for legislators and politicians. So far things haven’t been too bad, but as I get older there has been an increase of attempts on my life.”

“Jesus,” Shiro said, stopping in his tracks. “Keith, I had no idea. I’m so sorry, that must be so shitty.” For all the innocence Shiro had been associating with Keith, he would have never been able to guess that this was his reality. 

“I’ve gotten used to it, but I thank you for your concern. Plus, now that you’re here, you will have a direct hand in helping to put a stop to them.”

“I’m not sure I’m cut out for all this,” Shiro said. He’d done hard jobs, but this was a whole new level of difficulty.

“You are,” Keith swore. “Let it relieve you to know you’ll be put through training before you join me in fieldwork. But mark me when I say I chose you for a reason, Shiro.”

“My strong resume,” Shiro snorted, following Keith around a sharp corner toward a room that wore an ideogram of what Shiro suspected meant clothing.

“Not just that Shiro,” Keith said, coming to a halt in front of the door. “The greatest things about you are your adaptability and quick decision-making skills. Also, one more thing: because you are very kind. People out here are not so kind, Shiro. And kindness is not something you can download to your brain in an EduDisqueoo09 or install via microchip. Because kindness is not a one-way thing. It is mutual, and it has inertia. While hatred paralyzes and gridlocks, kindness moves forward.”

Shiro stood before Keith, and with each of Keith’s words he grew a little taller. He was at his full height when Keith finished and he felt every brave, bold, human inch of it. As Keith’s mouth set into a line, Shiro felt his jaw finally shut, having been agape at Keith’s declaration.

“Humanity is underrated out here,” Keith added. “I am the very first to know so. But I will not let them underestimate you.”

“Yes, sir,” Shiro said without thinking. 

A pause held the air hostage until Keith cleared his throat and Shiro could breathe again.

“Alright, let’s get you outfitted into some decent armor for space travel.”

“Sorry I didn’t pack any suits of armor. I guess I could have at least brought my knee pads.” This earned Shiro a snicker from Keith as he cycled through the biometrics at the door.

“So you need special clothes for hyperwarp?” He asked casually, leaning against the wall.

“Absolutely,” Keith said, gesturing for Shiro to head inside. “If you’re wearing clothes that aren’t designed for it they’ll disintegrate right off your body. How embarrassing.”

“Haha, yeah,” Shiro said, entering the room and imagining exactly how that situation might go. He rather liked the jeans he was wearing, as well as the few shreds of dignity he had left. 

“Alright Shiro, go ahead and step into the center of the room, right where the little feet stickers are.”

“Feet stickers,” Shiro echoed, casting his gaze downward. In the middle of the stark, steel gray room were a series of vague silhouette stickers, varying in size, shape, toe-count, and stance width. Shiro put his in the ones closest in size to his own despite the fact that they only had two toes. Did Keith only have two toes? Shiro felt like he would have noticed that. But he hadn’t noticed the tail, so who was he to brag about his powers of observation at this point?

An orange beam scanned the room and Keith yelped, shutting the door. “Let me know when you’re done!” 

“How will I know when I’m done?” Shiro asked, all of a sudden afraid to move a single inch.

White light filled the room, blinding him.

 

***


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things are starting to get better over here. I have three more chapters written ahead of this with a few more planned. Stay tuned !!!

The white light faded and Shiro’s eyes adjusted to the steel gray room. Instead of his favorite black jeans and t-shirt, he was wearing what he might call a catsuit considering it fit his every crack and curve and had the added bonus making him, at last, feel truly kindred with Michelle Pfeiffer. In front of him, the wall glowed with two boxes of Galra text, unreadable except for a question mark at the end of one of the lines.

An arrow flashed below one of the text boxes, pointing to a shallow basket that carried the black jeans and t-shirt he’d previously been wearing which were folded so crisply they looked fresh off the J.Crew shelf. When he picked up the basket, the other box of text generated an arrow indicating a table that Shiro hadn’t noticed when walking in. Spread over the table were many pieces of armor that seemed to be tailored to his precise measurements. He tried to follow the step-by-step guide that played out on the wall, but he couldn’t read them and was pretty sure he had the knee pieces on his elbows and vice versa. This was further insinuated when the text flashed red and part of the wall passive aggressively peeled open to reveal a full-length mirror for assistance.

“Hey, Keith,” he called out, acknowledging his limits. “I think I need some help.”

“Are you done?” Keith’s muffled voice called back.

“Yeah, everything’s printed I guess, but I can’t seem to figure out—”

“Shiro!” Keith scolded, slamming the door shut behind him and covering his eyes. “You’re practically naked!”

“I said I needed help!”

“You said you were done!”

The room chirped aggressively and Keith and Shiro came back to themselves.

“Can you please help me get into this disassembled rubik's cube, your highness?” 

“I don’t like your tone and I don’t understand that reference but yes I will help you,” Keith said, taking all the pieces off of Shiro one by one. “Ok, it’s always hard the first time you get a new suit,” Keith started to explain. “The chest piece goes on first, then legs.” Obediently, Shiro pulled the chest piece on until it settled over his shoulders, more comfortably than he expected. Keith showed how most of the pieces pulled apart in the centers where they were held together by magnets so Shiro didn’t have to pull them on over his feet every time. He stepped into the boots that Keith held steady for him.

All the while, Shiro found himself drawn to the occasional flicker of Keith’s tail, watching its reflection in the mirror as Keith made quick and efficient work out of Shiro’s suit. Candidly, he wondered what would happen if he tugged on it.

“Last are the arms,” Keith held out the round pieces for Shiro to stick his arms into. There were guards for his elbows and bracers that covered his entire forearms, wrist to elbow. “And gloves.” Shiro pulled on the gloves without help and turned to the mirror for the complete look.

The armor was a gunmetal gray with cadet blue accents. Keith pressed a button on Shiro’s right thigh armor and the seams between the pieces glowed a mysterious orange, giving the suit a sleek, finished, alien look. 

“There,” Keith said, quiet. “All set.”

“Thank you,” Shiro said to Keith, then again to the room. On their way out, the room chirped twice and Shiro looked around to source the issue. On the table where the armor pieces had been was a lonely helmet.

“I almost forgot! Thank you for reminding me,” he told the room, taking the helmet in his hands. With a paper-like flutter, it collapsed into a thin strip of shiny navy blue fabric with a clasp on either end.

“Whoa,” Shiro breathed.

“It’s easy to lose helmets, especially in a fight. When your suit senses adequate oxygen circulation throughout your body, the helmet collapses into a collar. It also reacts to impact physics.” As Keith elaborated, he affixed Shiro’s helmet-collar around his neck. He fought between amazement that it was just the right size and the strange gurgling feeling about how Keith putting a collar on him made him feel.

“That’s probably the coolest thing ever,” Shiro said in the end, wishing that the military had had similar technology when he’d enlisted.

“We haven’t even left the main floor of the ship,” Keith smiled, leading him out of the room.

“There are more floors?!”

*

Back on the bridge, Krolia greeted her son and his newly outfitted bodyguard with a perfunctory nod.

“Ready when you are, mom,” Keith said, taking a designated seat on the bridge. 

“Nice suit, Shiro,” she told him.

“Thank you ma’am.” He looked to Keith and around the bridge for a place to sit. He didn’t want to simply sit down without asking, and he definitely didn’t want to accidentally take someone else’s spot. “Um, Keith, where should I sit? Is there another room where I’m supposed to go?”

“Of course not, you’ll sit on the bridge with me.” Keith said this, but he did not elaborate, which meant that Shiro continued to stand patiently where he was, shifting his weight on one foot and then another. It was a great opportunity to appreciate the interior decor of the bridge as well as get used to his suit, but he was still a little concerned for the impending hyperwarp.

“Where?” Shiro implored after a long pause, and Keith patted the empty space beside him. Shiro hadn’t even considered that empty space a viable seat because it was hardly wider than his hand. And, no matter how many times he’d admittedly skipped leg day, Shiro was significantly larger than one hand wide. 

“Keith,” Shiro said, gritting his teeth. “I can’t fit there.”

With an irritated sigh, Keith stood up and pushed Shiro down into the seat, effectively trading places. Shiro raised an eyebrow that asked _now where will you sit?_ but Keith did not have time for dumb questions right before they were about to hyperwarp, so he fit as much of himself as he could in that hand-wide space and then draped the rest of himself over Shiro’s lap like any dignified royal would, pulling a seatbelt across the pair of them.

“I see,” Shiro said with pursed lips. 

The lights on the bridge dimmed slightly and Shiro watched the bridgehands pull seats out from the walls, buckling in like cabin attendants. Navigators announced their imminent hyperwarp and Shiro’s heart rate began to speed up, realizing that they really were about to superdrive the fuck out of the Solar System and into who knew where.

“Set course for Daibazaal IV, Marmora Headquarters,” Krolia’s commanding voice boomed. Ok, so they were headed for Marinara Headquarters, but what galaxy was that even in? It didn’t sound like anything in the Milky Way to Shiro.

The whole ship seemed to come alive as the engines revved. The image outside the windshield became blurred as the navigators announced the complete charge of dynotherms and activation of megathrusters.

“Hey,” Keith said, hardly above a whisper. “It’s gonna be okay.” 

Shiro did something stupid then and he grabbed Keith’s hand and squeezed, just to be sure, just to validate Keith’s words and make him not feel so damn scared about all the unknown factors spinning out of control around him.

The ship lurched. Shiro’s internal organs were left eighty bajillion kilometers behind him as they leaned into the infinite horizon line, toward a single point. It was like the whole ship was being stretched to the width of a sewing needle, pointed due north past the fifth dimension.

When the hyperwarp was announced finished and successful, the ship felt upright again. Shiro unlocked his hand from Keith’s and sat up straight, realizing he was buckled over and sweating quite profusely. Shiro was fine with adventures, but he was suddenly taken up with the concern that his stomach might not be.

Keith asked Shiro if he was alright and Shiro answered affirmatively anyway. With hope and precedent, he waited for the ill feeling to pass, figuring they were going to get whisked away to deal with a new task soon enough which could distract him from the indigestion. 

In no time at all, the bridge was requesting a breach and landing to what Shiro presumed was the local atmospheric ATC of the green and orange planet that hovered beyond the windshield.

After a message of approval, the ship pierced the local orbit and dove straight for the surface. Nerve-wracking, bumpy, and loud, the ride became smooth once they hit the open sky of the troposphere. 

“I can’t imagine what it would be like to drive one of these things,” Shiro murmured to Keith offhand.

“Would you like to learn how?” Keith asked.

“Not yet,” Shiro laughed.

Upon landing, the crew prepped for disembarkation. Krolia, Keith, and he were escorted out first, onto this planet’s version of tarmac. It was on this oddly colored and spongy-textured dirt that Shiro found himself in a completely different galaxy. Presently dawn on this planet, when he cast his gaze to the dim and wine red sky he found he could not name a single star or constellation. The land around them, as far as he could see, was rocky, unlivable scrubland that stretched for miles upon miles. There were only more questions that bubbled up inside him.

Their arrival was met with the mild fanfare of four reporters. Two of them were indeed purple, but the third was a capybara with legs for days and the fourth one was multiple hypnotic colors. From the crown of her translucent head cascaded down millions of jellyfish-like tentacles and Shiro wondered if they were effective nematocysts, enticing onlookers to reach out and touch them.

Krolia fed them a few solid soundbytes before their royal consort arrived, a large figure dressed in dark armor and wearing a mask with three glowing symbols evenly spaced apart. The mask wavered away and revealed the Galra face beneath.

“Krolia, welcome back,” he greeted in a low and rumbling voice.

“Kolivan,” Krolia replied. “Antok is not with you?”

“We are not always together,” Kolivan came close to a growl.

“Of course,” Krolia said, smothering a smirk.

Kolivan led them forward and they descended underground via well-concealed elevator. At the bottom was an industrial platform, all crisscrossing lustrous beams and planes of flat dark metal. Shiro’s eyes followed the monorail that seemed to float on nothing, leading down a dark tunnel from which a two-carriage train arrived, and the four of them stepped inside.

Inside, the train carriage had face to face bench style seating, similar to the trains in Japan that Shiro took when they went to visit his grandma. The seats were quite plush, deep cobalt in color, and ran all the way around the cabin in a horseshoe shape. The floor was polished and pristine, not a speck of dirt in sight. Like on the ship, the fine metallic surfaces possessed the same intricate, glowing carvings.

“Wow,” Krolia sat down with a labored exhale. She unclasped the fasteners and let her epaulettes and flowing cape fall from her shoulders, Kolivan dutifully catching all of the fabric in his arms. “Earth is such a ways away. Way too nostalgic,” she added, and Shiro could detect the note of sadness in her words.

“You’ve had a strenuous journey,” Kolivan said. “Is there anything I can do before we arrive at the Palace?”

Shiro ran _palace_ over in his head a few times before Keith nudged him excitedly in the side. His eyes were alight with some sort of mischief and at this point Shiro wanted more answers and less antics. “Come with me,” Keith said, tugging his arm. Shiro obliged him and was pulled toward the door that led to the second carriage, but before they could go, Krolia stopped them.

“Keith!” She barked. “You’re not going to introduce Shiro to Kolivan?”

“Oh, sorry,” Keith said. “Kolivan, this is my new bodyguard Shiro. Shiro, this is our friend slash military strategist slash butler Kolivan.”

“ _Butler_ ,” Kolivan choked on his disbelief as Krolia fixed Keith with a exasperated glare. Keith sighed and continued.

“You’ll be training with Kolivan soon. He is a highly skilled fighter and close friend of the family,” Keith added with a saccharine note which hardly pleased Kolivan. Rising from his seat, Kolivan approached Shiro and studied him intensely. Just when Shiro thought he would wither away under Kolivan’s laser gaze, he relented and held out both of his hands, palms up.

“Ah, this is a Galra greeting,” Keith interjected. He gestured for Shiro to mirror the gesture, placed his face-up open palms atop Kolivan’s. “ _I come unarmed and open-hearted_ ,” Keith recited. “That’s what this gesture means.”

Shiro repeated it to Kolivan and Kolivan drew his hands back, nodding. “Shiro,” he said. “You are small, but you are not as small as I feared you might be.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Shiro said, albeit confused. “You are, um, big?”

“Yes,” Kolivan said seriously. 

“Anyway, I’m gonna show him the video Antok made,” Keith said, guiding Shiro toward the second carriage.

The second carriage was not much different from the first, but it did have curtains and significantly more cup holders. Keith sat them down and got his tablet out, starting to interact with the lights and sound system.

“Enter command,” a kind robotic voice requested.

“Play tourist video,” Keith told it.

“Command unclear,” the robotic voice said apologetically.

“ _Play tourist video_ ,” Keith enunciated, holding the tablet much closer to his mouth.

“Command clear. Now playing ‘An Introduction To Daibazaal IV, Polity Palace and Associate Governments video, sponsored and produced by the Department of Tourism and Patrimony’.” 

The room went dim and a screen dropped from the ceiling of the carriage. Keith snuggled up next to Shiro and Shiro didn’t really mind, what with his brain still reeling from the constant input.

Music from an instrument that Shiro had never heard but thought Pidge would probably like began to fill the room, a haunting, heroic melody. Someone (purple) appeared on screen playing the instrument, and the only word Shiro could seem to find to describe both its appearance and sound was _wiggly_. 

A voice over complimented several beautiful images depicting what Shiro inferred to be the myriad ecosystems of the planet they were on. The narration was high and alluring.

“The Marmoran Headquarters of Daibazaal IV were founded during the Hundred Day Ochlocracy after the dissolution of the 10,000 year dictatorship. In those one hundred days, droves of Galra came together to design and establish a government that would serve them without exploiting them. The resilience of the people is reflected in the diverse, adaptable flora and fauna of Daibazaal IV.”

“It’s beautiful,” Shiro marveled as the video cut to crystal clear shots of craggy green peaks, purple plains with triangular trees, fluorescent pink rivers and indescribable wildlife that was pure elegance crossed with eldritch horrors. “Keith, how can I understand this? Is this in English?”

Keith paused the video and took a deep breath. “It’s really complicated but since communication errors inhibit sentient life from working together, about a hundred years ago a couple rebel Taujeerians designed special particles that decrypted language input and output, then spread them across the universes. These particles create and disperse wavelengths that essentially translate any spoken language in picoseconds until they reach your brain in wavelengths you can understand. It’s still pretty recent, high tech stuff, I barely understand it myself. I heard a rumor they got the idea from a primitive novel.”

“That,” he said. “Is so cool. So you’re speaking Galra right now?”

“No, I can speak English,” Keith said, “But I have slipped back into it now and again. Some of my closest knowledge is hard to express in another language.”

“That makes sense,” Shiro said, noticing how close his and Keith’s faces were. It seemed that gravity would only pull them closer together, but Keith unpaused the video and Shiro drew away; he couldn’t pass up the chance to get more information.

The narrator continued. “While you’re visiting, please consider making a trip to the ruins of the Kral Zera. Although haunting, the ruins represent the old ways of our ancient ancestors. Or the Historical Gallery in Polity Palace is another great destination, especially when traveling with offspring. Profoundly kin-focused, the Gallery represents the familial bonds that hold us all, even when those bonds are not of blood.”

Various shots of the Palace were shown, with rooms and decor far more humble than Shiro would typically associate with the word _palace_.

The video closed with a few cultural points, including how to do the greeting Shiro had just engaged in with Kolivan, as well as proper etiquette at interplanetary sports games and wedding receptions.

The screen retracted into the ceiling and the lights came back on. Shiro’s body felt heavy with all of the information.

“There’s so much to know,” he sighed in amazement.

“Try being the prince,” Keith sighed right back.

“Is that what you are?”

“The Galra word for it does not exist in English,” Keith sighed. “So I must borrow inaccurate monarchical terminology in order to approximate the meaning to you.”

Shiro thought hard about what being a prince must be like, but right as he was making decent progress into putting himself into Keith’s living-organism shoes, the train started to slow, making an announcement that Polity Palace was their next station. Keith stood up and made his way to the first carriage with Shiro in tow.

“Welcome to the Palace,” Kolivan said politely, unaware of Keith pointing and mouthing _butler_ behind him.

“So stinkin’ neat,” Shiro said as the station opened up around them, not knowing why he chose those exact words. Perhaps it was his latent dadness that Lance and Pidge were always bringing up. Either way, it felt right, since there were truly no terran words that could capture the strange bustle of being above ground again and in Polity Palace Station of all places.

The light of dawn shone throughout the station, illuminating the sparkling floors, casting a sun glow over the travelers inside it. They traveled through the crowds of tired passengers, past the throngs of buzzing paparazzi, up escalators that were disconcertingly fleshy in texture. The sampling of people in the station was fifty percent Galra, fifty percent everyone else, a mix of beings who fit words like bipedal, quadrupedal, proboscis-bearing, noseless, colorful, bland, tentacle-sporting, hairy, bumpy, amphibian, and beautifully terrifying. Observing this made Shiro ponder the nature of the 10,000 year dictatorship’s galactic reach; he’d assumed that it had been contained to the Galra people alone, but their jaunt through the station grew his interest to learn more. 

After successfully weaving through the station, Kolivan, Krolia, Keith and Shiro stood before Polity Palace as it had been shown in the tourist video. 

Shiro abruptly remembered the whistle-stop tour of western Europe he’d gone on after he’d left the air force. His mom was sick at the time and her dying wish was for her son to see more of the world since he wasn’t going to be traveling with the army any more. She sent him off with a stack of cash and a Rick Steves travel guide and told him to bring her home a lace doily from Belgium (which he did).

Above all, Shiro remembered being struck by the architecture the most, just as he had in Japan. But every new place he went to, he noticed how the scenery and establishments matched their people to an archetypal degree. London’s sturdy buildings and muted colors, peaceably bland, were like caricatures of the British. Paris’ Haussmann and Empire styles and stucco walls underlined the refined yet fundamentally romantic nature of the French.

When Shiro had felt the thin, taut, soft rice paper of his grandmother’s shoji screens for the first time, he understood exactly why his grandparents were always so stiff and economic in their movements. It is only natural that the things people make would reflect them. People don’t know how to do it any other way.

That’s why Shiro spent such a long time looking at Polity Palace, trying to suss out the truth from its beams, the concave sloping of its hyperbolic paraboloid roof top, the sweeping curves of the blue glass windows, all in an attempt to decipher who the Galra were and why it was so important that this palace existed. He did this because, while aliens, they were people.

“It’s nothing special,” Keith hummed, pulling him from his thoughts about why the roof’s shape was somehow making him hungry. “I was far more impressed with Earth’s Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramids, and Legoland.”

Shiro’s smile twisted in conflict at the last one, but he could appreciate what Keith was trying to convey. “It is our home, though. I hope you’ll enjoy staying with us,” he added.

“I’m staying here? There isn’t a barracks for grunt workers like me?” Shiro asked as they pressed forward toward the Palace.

“Of course,” Keith said. “You are my personal bodyguard, Shiro, and you’ll be staying in the finest accommodations we can offer here.” This was a relief to Shiro; while at first he didn’t believe he deserved to stay in anywhere deigned a palace, he would rather be near Keith than immersed in a group of people he didn’t know at all.

As they came flush with the Palace courtyards, Shiro felt a prickle down his spine, caught something enter and leave his peripheral vision. It was so jarring and fast that his shoulders tensed up out of pure instinct, and as soon as he tried to will away the feeling, to convince himself it was nothing, Kolivan blew by him and met the blur head on.

He was alarmed to see that his gut reaction was justified. Held down by the throat was a young Galra woman with the burning flame of hatred in her eyes, a rabid foam around her snarling mouth, and a shiny sword in her hand that Kolivan was quick to disarm. She hurled obscenities at Krolia and Keith who, despite recognizing that Kolivan had things under control, hardly relaxed from the defensive stances that they had taken. Shiro recalled that protecting Keith was his whole job now and he couldn’t even do that, he didn’t even know how to if this is what he was up against.

“You will say your peace in the people’s court,” Kolivan said lowly, pressing a button on the earpiece he was wearing. “Suspect apprehended in Courtyard Two. Send in backup units.”

“Fuck you,” she spat, writhing in ugly rage. “The Flame of Purification will cleanse the holy altar of your abject crimes.”

“Are you okay?” Shiro asked Keith through his blazing guilt, placing a hand that steadied them both on Keith’s shoulder.

“Fine,” Keith intoned, his eyes distant. “Kolivan’s got it.”

“It was thanks to Shiro I saw them coming,” Kolivan said, applying handcuffs to the woman on the ground. “I smelled his fear instinct.”

Before Shiro could consider how uncomfortable that made him, a swarm of sirens promptly descended on the courtyard. A consort similarly dressed to Kolivan hopped out of an armored vehicle, greeting Krolia first, hurrying them inside the palace.

“Let us go, my Lady,” her kind voice said. “Away from this.” Shiro and Keith followed them in, past the reception and foyer that Shiro recognized as the Historical Gallery from the tourist video. The consort scanned her biometrics and they walked through what Shiro decided was labeled an “employees only” door.

The consort removed her mask and gave proper greeting to Krolia. “Officer Ilun at your service,” she introduced, nodding to Keith and Shiro as well. “How was your trip to Earth?” 

“Fine,” Krolia said, shifting her weight to one foot. “How many Flames is that now? Eight? Nine?”

“Nine, my Lady,” Ilun said diplomatically. “We still have not been able to source a base location for their activities.”

“What have you gotten from the interviews?”

“They tell us nothing, my Lady.”

Krolia chewed her lip in thought. “I need a drink,” she sighed. 

“The cafeteria will open in two vargas, my Lady,” Ilun supplied. This answer did not seem to please Krolia, so she excused herself to her chambers, but not before checking in with her son. 

“Keith, how are you?” She asked, smoothing down his cowlick, ruffling his ears.

“I’m fine,” Keith said in a voice that begged her not to worry. “I have Shiro.”

While that was enough for Keith, Shiro knew it wasn’t enough for Krolia. It was hardly enough for himself! He was pretty sure he could use his own bodyguard at this point. But Keith’s eyes were relaxed enough to appease Krolia to the point where she felt comfortable leaving. Ilun explained she would have to accompany Krolia for her safety, and soon the two men were on their own.

“That was a lot,” Shiro spoke frankly. 

“That is what we have been dealing with regularly,” Keith sighed, his shoulders heavy. “But we are safe now. Thank you for being there; your presence made a difference.”

It didn’t feel that way, but Shiro chose to silently accept the praise.

“Let’s go,” Keith said. “I’ll show you to your room.”

 

***


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all thank you so much for your kind comments and kudos. your response has lightened my load, and the stuff going on in my life is moving forward. whatever the next step looks like, i'm so glad i've had vld and sk fandom to be there.
> 
> quick news! the chapters get quite lengthy from here on out, so it will take me a full week (instead of five days cause i get so excited to post!) in between updates to fully edit them, esp since i don't have a beta reader! not to mention i will be participating in NaNoWriMo this year. i'm hoping i can balance everything out alright, but we shall see! either way, thank you again a million times over. sending you love and light and hoping you are eating well and getting some tasty sunlight every now and again.
> 
> enjoy my favorite chapter so far !

Shiro had gotten used to walking side by side with Keith wherever they went. Now, a heavy-hearted Keith sauntered in front of him on the way to Shiro’s new room. It was funny that Shiro had only know Keith for a couple days now but could recognize and read his emotions with increasing fluency. He racked his brain for what he could say to make him feel better.

“H-hey,” he called to Keith, his voice cracking, still weak from their encounter in the courtyard. Keith continued walking, his head low.

“What is it?”

Shiro decided then and there that he had to grab Keith’s hand to make him turn around and look at him. It was imperative that they made eye contact. So Shiro reached out, down, and low, grabbing for the movement at Keith’s side.

But he reached too late and not left enough, grabbing not Keith’s arm, but his tail.

When Shiro would look back on this incident weeks, months, and years from now, he would remember it as the moment where the nature of their relationship changed forever. A noise left Keith that was of an octave and range that only sex-god Freddie Mercury or an injured house cat were acquainted with. It was so authentic and loud that it seemed to ricochet down the hallway, up through the glass windows, and off the pringle-shaped roof top that was the only thing that could prevent the noise from going everywhere else.

“Oh my god,” Shiro sputtered, releasing the tail and watching Keith hold it tight in his own hands, simultaneously congratulating himself for figuring out that the roof looked like a pringle and that’s why he got hungry looking at it. Face red as carmine, he searched for the words that might reverse time to undo this horrible mistake. “Keith, I am so sorry, I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to, Keith.”

To his shock and relief, Keith laughed.

“How,” Keith gasped for air. Laughter held his voice hostage. Shiro had never heard Keith laugh so hard, and it became contagious. “How did you miss my hand,” Keith continued. “For this!” He shook his tail as evidence and sure enough when Shiro compared the tail with a hand they looked nothing alike, the single commonality being that they were protruding limbs. It was like mistaking a leg for an ear. How did it happen? How was this happening to him?

Keith suddenly had his arms around him in a traditional Galra embrace or maybe just a hug. Shiro's arms worked their way around Keith, encircling his straight, small waist and broad strong shoulders. With a deep, shuddering exhale, Keith said “Thank you,” into Shiro’s chest. “I needed a laugh.”

He pulled back and they walked side by side for the rest of the way.

*

Shiro unloaded his duffel bag, placing his few belongings around his new room. It was a lovely, humble bedroom with minimal decoration and an adjacent washroom: the basics. Because there was no kitchen, he assumed that meals would be taken care of. Keith’s room was right next door to Shiro’s apparently, and there was a secret entrance that Keith promised to show him once he got back from his own room. Though he knew it was for security reasons, he did wish there were a window or two to brighten the place up.

Indulgently, Shiro took off his boots and lay down on the undressed bed, the sheets sitting patiently at the foot. He closed his eyes and tried to come down from his wild morning, to rest if only for a moment.

And a short moment it was. “Shiro?” He heard Keith call from a ways off. “Where are y—Shiro!” He exclaimed, peeking his head in from a door Shiro hadn’t noticed before. “What are you doing in your guest bedroom?”

“Guest bedroom? This is the room that my biometrics led me to,” he explained, quickly sitting up and putting his shoes back on.

“Weird. We will have to fix that. Come with me, then. No need for your boots,” Keith said, head disappearing back through the door.

Through the door was a room so bright Shiro had to shield his eyes for an instant. A wall of windows invited in natural mid-morning light, spraying it over a heated floor that warmed the aching soles of Shiro’s feet. The room was four times larger than the guest room, longer than it was wide, with a sleeping area on one end and a kitchenette on the other. On the bedroom side, Keith leaned against a wall with his arms crossed, watching Shiro’s bewildered expressions, finally landing on Keith in awe.

Keith had changed clothes and instead of his severe tunic, he was wearing a dark, thick pelisse over the Galra version of sports leggings and a crop top. The pelisse pinched him at the slimmest part of his waist and hugged the cut shapes of his arms, almost dusting the ground in its length. Its fabric had a fine, repeating lattice pattern that Shiro recalled seeing on Krolia’s cape, and it made Keith look very relaxed and royal.

“This is arguably better than the guest bedroom,” Shiro told him. “The windows aren’t a security issue?”

“They’re one-way and xyforge-bulletproof,” Keith said. “I’d like to see a tetralight particle shell pierce those enhanced borosilicate fibers,” he added with a confident snort, which was comforting to Shiro. “Here, I’ll show you how to get to my room in case of emergency.”

Keith then demonstrated the proper secret entry into his room via secret door. While explaining that the door used a more primitive system since biometrics could theoretically be hacked, Shiro watched him feel around the wall, stopping with a successful “A-ha!” when he found what he was looking for.

“Right here,” he said. “There’s a slot. To unlock the door, it requires a cartridge with a DNA sampling.”

“What kind of DNA?” Shiro asked, feeling queasy.

“Doesn’t matter as long as it is from the other person,” Keith said.

“How will we—” 

Keith held up his hand and gave Shiro a thin silver chain the he pulled from the pocket of his pelisse. Dangling from the chain was a wee locket that looked suspiciously like a micro SD card, and Keith gestured for Shiro to open it. Inside, an impossibly tiny braid of inky black hair lay atop a piece of purple fabric.

“That’s a lock of my hair,” Keith said. “When you need to get in to my room, insert the necklace into this slot. The door will unlock and you will then slide, not push, it open.”

Shiro expressed his understanding with a nod. He wasn’t big on jewelry but he supposed the necklace had a techno goth look to it, and Shiro, a former goth himself, could absolutely pull it off.

“I’ll need a lock of your hair,” Keith said, his voice softening. “If that’s okay.”

“Of course,” Shiro said. There were any number of reasons that a shared door could be useful, but only if it was two-way access. Keith had Shiro sit on his bed while he braided a very small piece of his hair from where he wore it a little longer on top and in front. It was a strange sensation but Shiro knew their relationship was permanently altered because of the tail thing. He owed this to Keith.

When Keith was done, he snipped the minute braid, ruffled Shiro’s hair, and slipped the piece into the locket, tying it around his neck and tucking it into the front of his shirt.

“Alright, let’s make sure they work,” he said, standing up and hurrying for the door. “I’ll be in my room!”

Shiro watched him scurry out the door and waited a moment to ensure that Keith would be there on the other side. After a beat, Shiro held the locket up, ran his hand along the wall to feel for the slot. When his fingers bumped over it, he inserted the cartridge and the door sighed with a satisfying click. He made sure to slide, not push, it open.

Keith was there on the other side with jazz hands.

“Okay, let me try!” He said, pushing Shiro back into his room and sliding the door shut. Ten seconds passed and then, anticlimactically, Keith activated the door and slid it open. It felt sort of stupid but Shiro couldn’t help but return the jazz hands.

*

From there, Keith gave Shiro a tour of his own room and the Palace in general. They walked through the cafeteria, a mess hall type dining area where administrative workers, legislators, and Palace staff alike ate together. There was a special table designated for Keith, Krolia, and the upper echelon workers.

They walked back to the foyer, pleased to see that the hubbub from earlier had calmed completely. Shiro met the reception workers, shook hands with the custodians, introduced himself to the craft services team. 

Then they made their way down to the training hub. A sprawling gymnasium of equipment and studios, Shiro marveled at all of the machines and how the only familiar looking one was a treadmill. Some things were just universal.

Coming upon a large group wearing armor like Kolivan’s and Ilun’s, Shiro wasn’t surprised to see Kolivan himself preaching to the group. He was thanking them for their work in the courtyard, and when his eye caught Shiro he made sure to make a big deal out of it.

“This man also played a part in the apprehension today,” he said, evoking cordial applause from his audience. “I have his primitive instincts to thank for the speed and success of the capture. Keith, would you say a few words on his behalf?”

“Of course,” Keith replied, stepping forward. He made the open-palmed gesture, greeting the group with, “Hello everyone. This is Shiro, my new bodyguard. Starting tomorrow, he will be training and working with the lot of you in order to hone his skills and become a warrior worthy of the Blade of Marmora, Polity Palace’s security force. I can see the shock on some of your faces, but I anticipated that surprise would be a common reaction upon seeing him for the first time. Did I choose Shiro because he was 70% neck? No, of course not. Was that a factor in my overall choosing? Absolutely it was, I’m not a complete fool.” Shiro pursed his lips at this comment, at a total loss. He was flattered, but 70%? Good to know Keith viewed him as two thirds neck.

“The number one reason I selected him is because he is human. Treat him as you would treat anyone else. But do not underestimate him. That is the biggest mistake you could make when dealing with a human being.” 

“It’s certainly how your mother got knocked up with you,” came a ribbing jab from the crowd, earning a melange of wolf whistles and disappointed _tsk_ ing. Shiro personally experienced an out-of-body shock at the flippant comment, unable to guess how Keith would react.

“That’s correct, Regris. Practice safe sex everyone, especially with extraplanetary species.”

“How did he know it was me?” Regris asked to the person next to him, dumbfounded at how quickly he was identified. 

“Would you like to add anything, Shiro?” Keith asked, recovering from a smug expression at his own quick wit.

“Yes, if that’s okay,” Shiro said, nerves and confidence battling for dominance over the knot in his throat. He needed some control right now to compensate for his total helplessness.

The crowd’s murmuring fell silent as Shiro stepped forward and did the open-palmed gesture. He repeated the words “I come unarmed and open-hearted,” and the crowd seemed impacted. 

“Thank you for all of your hospitality. My name is Shiro and I am from Earth. I’m looking forward to training with such commendable warriors. I don’t have much experience or skill with this sort of thing, so I ask only for your patience.” Shiro was about to leave it at that but then he caught sight of Keith, who was staring at him with adulation so palpable he could feel it brush his cheek with soft fingers, tilt his chin up and encourage him to be strong. “I promise to protect Keith with my life,” he heard himself say, feeling the heavy truth of it in his chest. To think he had thought trust-bonding was just a hoax.

An enthusiastic golf clap erupted among the crowd and Shiro felt the wave of happiness that accompanies acceptance. He imagined holding it like a tealight candle, shielding it from the wind. He recalled his early days in the air force: this feeling would not last long.

Keith excused them from the gymnasium. They headed back for the cafeteria where lunch would be waiting for them.

Krolia was already at the table, talking with Ilun and waving around a martini glass like it was a physical manifestation of her punctuation. She drew commas and rhetorical questions in the air, rapid and rapturous like a Jackson Pollock painting. Keith pointedly chose a seat as far from her as possible in fear that the exclamation point might ruin his clothes.

Taking a seat beside him, Shiro observed the spread of food before him; he had been dreading what would become of his diet now that he was in the outer reaches of space and on a completely different planet. Keith caught wind of his unease and introduced the plates on the table one by one, deftly comparing them to various earth dishes. 

Only human, Shiro chose to rely mainly on the chunky soup dish that Keith described as “the zesty, leavened cousin of karubi ramen,” pulling a bowl in front of him. Relieved that Galra silverware was not more complicated than sporks, he took a bite of the soup and found it quite to his taste.

“It’s good,” he told Keith, astounded. “It’s really good.”

“Galra cuisine has been an unchanging staple of excellence in our culture. Some joke the dictatorship lasted so long because the food was so good,” Ilun chimed in. 

“A tasteless joke,” Krolia drawled, sipping her martini.

“I don’t know, this is pretty flavorful,” Shiro jested to no avail. Although he didn’t hold it against her, Krolia’s sense of duty had likely replaced her sense of humor. Or maybe the martini was just extra dry.

“Try this,” Keith offered, handing Shiro what looked like a purple chapati. There were iridescent chips scattered throughout when he pulled apart the soft bread, and it was chewy when he took a bite.

“This is good, too,” Shiro sighed, loving the way the chips melted in his mouth. “You know, to be honest, I was sort of afraid that I might not be able to eat alien food. I guess I was expecting strange pudding with eyeballs or tentacles or something.”

“I certainly wasn’t. Imagine my surprise when I discovered Earth food that wasn’t my dad’s cooking,” Keith countered. “Terrans consume an alarming amount of meat.”

“You mean you don’t?” Shiro asked sheepishly.

“We don’t,” Keith confirmed. “Galra long ago recognized that animal agriculture is not a sustainable practice. Why do you think this is Daibazaal _IV_? Now, most of our food is plant and legume based. For example, that walla-walla bread’s soft texture comes from a sweet tuber that grows year-round, so it is a commonly found item on the Galra dinner table.”

“I’m learning so much,” Shiro said, trying the bright orange berries clusters that were cakey and the pink lettuce strips that had a chitinous, licorice-esque texture. 

As Shiro started work on trying the entire catalog of Galra cooking, someone new joined them at the table. His stature was large enough to block the natural light of the windows where he stood, and the ill energy of his presence made the food between Shiro’s teeth go bitter.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” he greeted in a bassy, unctuous voice that Shiro thought was perfect for sycophants or audiobook narrators. “Welcome back, my Lady. What a day worth celebrating.”

“Clearly you haven’t left your desk all day, Sendak,” Krolia rolled her eyes. “We were almost attacked by another Flame this morning. In the courtyard, no less. They grow bolder with each attempt,” she said, descending into a grim mood.

“Stars and belts,” Sendak gasped, melodramatically grabbing his substantial chest. “Perhaps it is because you have yet to show any political teeth by castigating their actions.”

“Sendak,” Krolia warned sharply. “I’ve told you time and again. We are not going to punish political protesters. I only wish that their protests did not manifest as murder attempts.”

“You are far too forgiving, my Lady,” Sendak shrugged, reaching for a heaping plate of what looked like braided strands of grass. “This tenderness will be your undoing.”

It was big talk for someone who seemed to be no more than a paper pusher, Shiro thought. Watching Krolia’s dour expression fade into self-doubt made his heart ache with anger.

“That’s not true,” he said, swallowing the bitter mouthful. “Krolia’s patience far outweighs any president or prime minister I’ve ever encountered. Even if nothing changes and the attempts do not cease, I still think your government is an intrepid attempt to remind its public that their leaders are people, too.”

Shiro felt something land on his knee and he nearly flinched until he realized it was Keith, his small hand squeezing in a gesture of warning or thanks. His unreadable expression made it hard to distinguish which it was.

At the very least, Krolia appeared bolstered, and she continued to nurse her martini with renewed vigor, raising a challenging eyebrow at Sendak who glowered, chewing on his grass tresses and sizing Shiro up like he was vermin to be exterminated.

In a stroke of what might’ve been fate for speaking so boldly out of turn, a sudden wave of anxiety washed over Shiro, traveling down his esophagus like heartburn and settling low in his stomach with an all too familiar weight. “Hey Keith,” he said very quietly. “Where can I use the bathroom?”

“Right outside the cafeteria,” Keith replied helpfully. “Leave through that exit and hang a left.”

Glad to be free of Sendak’s glares and the gas-inducing tension of the table, Shiro made a beeline for the bathroom. He hadn’t gone since they’d left and the nerves were not helping. Hanging a left, he came upon three evenly spaced doors, all sporting a different Galra symbol that was utterly undecipherable.

“Shit,” he murmured, turning tail and heading to his room where he knew there would be a safe toilet where no one could judge him for his honest mistakes. After a couple flights of stairs, he realized he had no idea how to get back to his room, so he ran back to the cafeteria to beg Keith for help.

“Keith,” he wheezed, out of breath and sweating from the jog back and forth. He ducked his head low to avoid the prying stares of Krolia, Sendak, and Ilun. “How do I know which bathroom to use?” 

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, Shiro,” Keith gasped, on his feet quicker than lightning. “I completely forgot to teach you the difference.”

They sped down the hall and Shiro held himself together. When they stood before the three different categories, Keith pulled Shiro toward the leftmost one, his finger pointing to the foreign symbol.

“You’ll want to use this one,” he explained, highlighting two pokey looking parts of the sign. He lowered his voice and failed to muffle his giggling as he said, “I like to pretend these are the claspers to help remember which is which.”

“Keith,” Shiro swallowed, feeling the blood drain from his face and the need to relieve himself get stronger. “I don’t have claspers.”

Keith’s face paled, the mirth from his previous joke disintegrating like non-standard clothing in a hyperwarp. “You don’t?”

“ _No_ ,” Shiro cried. This was it, this was the moment he would finally lose it, overwhelmed by casually sharing information about his genitalia and learning about Keith’s in turn.

“It’s fine, it’s not a big deal,” Keith said, calm but clearly replaying their conversation in his head. “So do you just have like one clasper or is it—”

“ _I don’t have claspers!_ ” Shiro hissed, borderline hysterical.

“Shiro! Calm down,” Keith hushed him, pushing him toward the middle door. “Here, the one with the somewhat E-shaped symbol is gender neutral. Get it? Rated E for everyone.”

And that was how Shiro dissociated in the gender neutral bathroom on Daibazaal IV. 

*

He spent a long time staring at the toilet instructions written in Galra and plastered on the stall wall, and he spent a longer time sitting and letting the massage seat soothe his frenzy via gluteal ayurveda. Maybe if he could reach butt nirvana there would be answers waiting for him on the other side of the stall wall, or at least a way to stay calm about everything being so goddamn different.

Head in his hands, he raked his fingers through his hair, increasingly embarrassed about his meltdown. Wishing he had his phone so he could message Keith and apologize from behind a wall of text, he thought about Earth and how far he was from home. In a parallel universe he might even still be with Adam, still on Earth and ignorant to anything else, stuck in a dead-end relationship and all too cognizant of it.

Giving up on that train of thought, Shiro wrote up a really good apology text in his head and rehearsed it aloud so that when he saw Keith he could prove that he wasn’t such a weak person.

When his stomach felt better and his pity party felt over, Shiro searched for the flush to cleanse him of this tragic scene forever. It took several tries to find the right button, but thankfully the only untoward result was finding out the seat massage had an extra high power setting.

At the sink, there were six different bottles of soap. With a deep, put-upon sigh, Shiro squeezed a dollop from each bottle into his hands and dutifully washed them clean. 

Outside the bathroom, Shiro found Keith leaning up against a wall, engaged in the platonic ideal of brooding, looking up when he saw him. 

“Hey,” Shiro started. “I’m sorry I freaked out about the bathroom thing. I didn’t mean to get upset with you, and I should have been a lot calmer about the whole thing. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Shiro,” Keith said, drawing away from the wall. “It should be me apologizing. I didn’t even stop to think how the bathrooms, a basic need so normal and mundane to each of us, could be such a point of concern. Everything that’s normal to me is currently alien to you. But I dragged you all the way out here and I should have been way more considerate. Please accept my apology, Shiro.”

Keith held his clasped hands up in supplication, his eyes brimming with tears. This Keith was so different from the flippant Keith who had appeared in his apartment out of the blue a few nights ago. This Keith was starting to understand the consequences of his actions and in turn Shiro was starting to understand the consequences of his own inaction.

“We both made mistakes,” Shiro said. “Thank you for helping me no matter what, Keith.”

“Thank you for forgiving me,” Keith exhaled, wiping his wet eyes.

Later that night, when Shiro was changing into his sleep clothes, he noticed the size of his bed was twice as big as the one he had at home. He wondered vaguely, if it would feel empty after trust-bonding with Keith.

He then found himself knocking on the secret entrance, clandestinely hoping that Keith might want to trust-bond again. “Keith?” A muffled but affirmative reply came from the other side and Shiro unlocked it, sliding it open. Half-expecting jazz hands, he was surprised to see Keith lying in bed, eyes peacefully closed.

“What is it?” He mumbled, opening his eyes a crack.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Shiro said. “I wanted to say goodnight properly.”

Keith smiled sleepily. “Goodnight Shiro.”

“Goodnight Keith. So everything is alright in here?”

“Just fine,” he yawned, snuggling into his blankets a little more.

“No more trust-bonding, then?” He asked, regretting it immediately upon seeing Keith’s eyes fly open in surprise.

“Not tonight, I’m afraid,” Keith said, his voice heavy with something nameless. “Either way, we have essentially completed the trust-bonding process.”

A sadness poked at Shiro when Keith uttered these words and he knew that they would not be sharing a bed for as long as it took for him to be ready to kiss Keith and complete the process as he’d requested. It was clear they were both looking for different things, and in any case, they had asked quite a bit of each other that day.

“Gotcha. Alrighty then. Goodnight,” and with those dad-like words, he ducked out of the room, slid the door shut, and crawled into bed where he fell asleep quickly and didn’t dream at all.

 

***


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my gosh! sorry for the small delay!! nanowrimo has been kicking my butt, not to mention that from here on out the chapters get a little longer. currently, i'm on the tail end of writing chapter eight of this story and it's sooooo long hahaha. prepare yourself for some rising action in this chapter! hope y'all are well. 
> 
> i also want to thank you for your incredibly kind comments. just wow!!!!! they really make my day. alright take care, hope you enjoy this one hahaha. training montage!!

The next day, Shiro began his training with the Blade of Marmora. He woke early to Keith slipping in through the secret entrance and sitting on the edge of his bed, nudging him lightly and saying, “Bodyguard: The movie. Episode one, bodyguard training day one: the reckoning. Starring: Shiro. Featuring: Shiro. Executively produced by: Keith.” Shiro let Keith go on with the movie scenario, hoping he would tucker himself out creatively since it was still so early, but he’d gotten to the third act before Shiro finally stepped in.

“I’m up,” he said. “Enough, before it gets too realistic and my love interest gets held hostage.”

That caused a very strange silence to befall them both and Shiro felt ridiculous for saying it at all, especially after his overly needy behavior the previous night. Keith wasn't his love interest and he wasn't about to jinx them and get him kidnapped. To make amends, he sat up and ruffled Keith’s hair and asked him to keep going. What was the villain’s great plan? How would Shiro overcome the darkness?

Dressed and ready, Keith and Shiro walked to the mess hall and took a seat at their table, but Keith didn’t want him to eat anything.

“You’ll want to skip breakfast this week,” he said, biting into a roll of walla-walla bread. “Trust me.”

“But it’s the most important meal of the day,” Shiro argued, his stomach grumbling in complaint.

“ _Trust me_ ,” Keith repeated, mouth full. “Antok is a sweet guy but he always aims for the gut. Until you can dodge it, I wouldn’t eat breakfast.”

It was an ominous warning but Shiro didn’t have any reasons not to trust Keith. Regardless, he snuck a bite of Keith’s bread anyway, if only to silence the warbling in his stomach.

After that, Keith escorted him to the gymnasium, greeting the Blades as he went. His face lit up after making eye contact with a Blade at the end of the hall, and his trot picked up into a gallop, running straight into the arms of a enormous man who was twice the width of Kolivan, which meant three times the width of Shiro. He picked Keith up and spun him around like he weighed nothing.

“Antok!” Keith greeted. “Good morning. I’ve got your newest student here with me.”

“I heard a bit about this new student along with the incident yesterday. You’re unharmed, Yorak?” Shiro was amazed to see Keith nod in response to being called Yorak as well as be unopposed to getting poked and prodded by Antok’s sizeable hands.

“I’m fine, Shiro was there to help. Go easy on him, okay?”

“No promises,” Antok chuckled in a boomy, rough voice, and his tone was almost menacing. Changing his attention, Antok approached Shiro and they greeted each other with open palms.

“Thank you for watching out for Yorak,” Antok said. “It was a lucky break that no one was hurt.”

“Of course,” Shiro said, trying to find the catch in Antok’s statement. Shiro still felt guilty for not being able to do more, but he hoped he could atone by giving it his all in training. “I want to do better,” he added, the slice of honesty well worth something.

“I will break you and reshape you into a man who will never let him down,” Antok grinned, arms akimbo.

“Oh my god,” Shiro whispered under his breath, scared shitless. “Yes, sir.”

“Good manners. Very nice,” Antok praised. “But you have already made one unforgivable mistake,” he said, and straightaway he was on the ground and swinging a girthy leg under Shiro, sweeping him off his feet and onto the floor below with a loud thump that would bruise his backside and surely hurt when pressed by the massage toilets later.

“You walked here today without a care in the world,” Antok elaborated, circling Shiro like he was easy prey. “And you let Yorak lead you like a puppy.”

“I can look out for myself,” Keith interjected defensively, but Antok dismissed him with a cold hand.

“You will prioritize his safety over your comfort,” Antok emphasized, abruptly bringing down a heel toward Shiro’s stomach. Luckily, Shiro was expecting it thanks to Keith’s earlier comment, and he rolled out of the way, back onto his feet and ready for the next swing.

It had been years since he was discharged from the air force, but his battle instincts were coming back to him like a bad dream. Every fight he ever won or lost flooded his nostrils with the same acrid, metallic flavor, and he cracked his neck to shake off the tinnitus he knew he’d have by the end of the day.

Antok’s face remain unchanged and unimpressed, a fine juxtaposition with the hopeful glitter in Keith’s eyes. _I can do this_ , Shiro thought. _I’m going to get paid sixty thousand dollars and get smoothies at the gym, and I’m going to do it by protecting Keith_. Keith was the whole reason Shiro was in the Palace in the first place and Antok wasn’t going to let him forget it, even at the expense of his own safety.

With a growl, Antok lunged forward and swung at Shiro with a left hook, but sheer dumb luck had Shiro successfully dodging again. As he played defense, he racked his brain for ideas on how to take down a larger adversary. The truth was that back home, not many people were larger than Shiro. At more than six feet, two hundred and ten pounds, and the capacity to bench three-fifty, Shiro was simply not used to being smaller than his opponent.

He knew that would be his downfall. He couldn’t keep dodging Antok forever, and he couldn’t keep doing it confidently with Keith watching.

Antok seemed to notice this.

“Yorak,” he said, not leaving his defensive squat. “Head off to help your mother.”

“But Antok, I want to help here,” Keith’s mouth drew to one corner. Antok did not waver, however, and Keith was soon walking away with his tail between his legs. “Keep security detail on the prince,” Antok said, pressing on his earpiece. “And let Kolivan know I’ll be offline this morning.”

From there, Antok paid Shiro his full attention.

*

Shiro’s training was scheduled for a two-week crash course to help him get onto the field as soon as possible. Antok made sure to hammer in the fact that most Blades devoted years to their study and outclassed him for miles. With unyielding ambition, Shiro promised to finish Antok’s lessons within a week. By day four, Antok was starting to believe him.

That first day, Antok had laid Shiro out like laundry on Sunday. Kolivan visited the gym mid-afternoon, bringing Antok lunch and embracing him with an affectionate hello, only to quickly pull away in distaste.

“You are drenched in sweat,” he said, brushing off his tunic.

“I love you,” Antok replied. “Blame this one,” he added, gesturing to Shiro’s crumpling form on the mats, his clothes soaked through with his own efforts. Kolivan was not pleased and he let both of them know it.

When evening fell and Shiro could no longer stay on his feet, Keith carried him to a healing pod and hit _speed cycle_ , fixing Shiro up in a short thirty minutes. He’d gone to bed thinking about how he wasn’t going to eat breakfast ever again so long as he knew Antok would be waiting for him in the gymnasium.

On the second day, Antok spent more time breaking down his moves, narrating his attacks as he went, and casually discussed his video editing hobby while boxing Shiro’s ears or kicking him in the back of the knees. He explained proper technique against multiple large opponents, and borrowed two Blades to execute it. One was Regris, the guy who had made the crack about Keith’s mom, and the other was a patient, quiet type named Ulaz. Funny enough, Ulaz was the first Galra besides Keith and Krolia that Shiro found inherently attractive. There was grace about the slope of his cheekbones, a distinguished quality in his aquiline nose. He did not complain when Ulaz pinned him to the ground à la taint drop, although his neck ached that night when he stepped into the healing pod.

The third day, Shiro had figured out how to hack the healing pods by downing several protein bars and a sweet fruit juice before he got in. He had Krolia to thank for that tip as well as her seemingly endless supply of the Galra equivalent of white chocolate almond Clif bars.

“They’re so addicting,” Krolia explained, shaking her head and handing Shiro a box of them. “Please take some. If you eat two before you get in, you won’t be tired afterward. Plus, it’ll probably help put some muscle on you.”

As a rule of thumb, Shiro only consumed his proteins via whey shakes since the bars had too many carbs, but he figured he needed all the energy he could get if he was going to be refining his body into a sword and shield on the other side of the universe. 

Shiro rarely saw Keith except for at meals and before bed. He was always there and waiting for him in the medical bay by the healing pods, happy to push the buttons and help him back to his room afterward.

“Thank you,” he would say. “I know this isn’t easy. You worked really hard today.” Gently, Keith would help Shiro into bed and disappear through the secret entrance.

When the fifth day came, Antok greeted Shiro with a proud clap on the back and praised him for his dedication thus far. From there on, they were going to split the day doing physical training in the morning followed by survival and cultural training in the afternoons.

“You’ve proven yourself on the mats,” Antok said. “But can you prove yourself in the kitchen?”

For some reason Antok's delivery of that line made Shiro wonder if Gordon Ramsey was going to walk onto the scene and call him an idiot sandwich a million light years from Earth. When nothing happened, he meekly shrugged his shoulders and admitted, “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Pop quiz,” Antok hissed. “You’re in the cafeteria enjoying a lovely dinner with Lady Krolia and the prince. But wait! Someone has slipped a vial of scaultrite poison into the parri fruits! What do you do?” Shiro’s stomach dropped in horrified shame. He had gone countless full meals without even considering that the food could have been poisoned. He struggled to respond but thankfully Antok cut him off. “Trick question. Galra cannot be poisoned. Our gallbladders are among the most powerful in the known universes.”

“Oh wow,” Shiro said, relief flooding him. “I had no idea, that is so cool.”

“Fooled you. The food is quality checked by a team of highly trained wolves.”

“Oh ok, well that makes sense too—”

“Ha! Fooled you again, the gallbladder thing is actually true.”

Shiro didn’t know what to believe, except that Antok was a lot like his Aunt Noriko who would would always pull his leg by convincing him Japanese refrigerators were run by teams of mega-intelligent, radiated super hamsters.

“So what do you do?” Antok repeated.

“Wait for it to pass?” Shiro tried.

“That’s correct. A cold compress for the fever and an antacid for the heartburn also make good additions to the remedy.”

“Understood,” Shiro said. “Can I write this down?”

They spent all their hours increasing Shiro’s knowledge about the Galra, even throwing in facts about other species as well. When Antok grew tired of Shiro’s annoying diligence, Ulaz sat with him and taught him to read the Galra alphasyllabary, helped him through the throaty phonemes and complex compounded sounds of their speech. Unlike all the languages he knew and the alien languages he’d heard in movies and on TV, there were no glottal stops in Galra and Ulaz had to correct him every time by squeezing his throat when he tried to make Galran word for “diplomacy” trimoraic.

“Stop trying to add more sounds,” Ulaz begged him.

“There’s so many vowels,” Shiro wheezed, flushed with the weight of Ulaz’s giant hand on his neck. “How can you expect me not to?” Sometimes Shiro messed up on purpose to get the physical contact; there wasn't much in the way of externalizing all the stress and frustration from training, so he made due where he could.

By day six, Shiro was greeting Antok in Galra to the best of his ability. It was a strange sensation to communicate in such a foreign language, especially knowing that the wavelengths could be translated if he just spoke in English. But Shiro viewed it as a challenge, and if he wanted to anticipate the Galra then he needed to understand them. It helped that he’d memorized their number system in a few hours, now able to keep up with Antok's untranslatable count-offs as well as understand the charts in the cafeteria regarding caloric value of the food. Keith told him he was impressed and started throwing out basic math questions to quiz him on the spot. 

That same day, Shiro ate lunch with Regris for the first time, who apologized for choking him out.

“I didn’t realize the tapping gesture meant ‘stop’ for you,” he said ruefully. “Here, we do this,” and he demonstrated by holding up two fingers and waving them in a recognizable peace sign.

“I’ll have to remember that for next time,” Shiro said, rubbing his aching neck.

“Off-topic, but,” Regris started. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. I saw you using the gender-neutral bathroom and I wanted to make sure I was using the right pronouns for you.”

“Oh,” Shiro said finally after anticipating some sort of joke or jape. It wasn’t in Regris’ style to be so ingenuous, so he was caught off guard by the sincerity of the question. “No, yeah, he/him pronouns are fine Regris,” he said. “I just feel more comfortable using the gender-neutral one since I’m, er. Built differently. Than everyone else.

“Me too,” Regris smiled. Those two plain spoken words had Shiro’s heart melting with newfound amity for Regris. Shiro taught him how to fist bump and that was the fulcrum of their interactions from then on.

By the time day seven came, Antok was at a loss. Shiro had completed the training he planned for him within half the original timeline. It struck him during their morning sparring session when Shiro brought him to the ground using the same leg sweep that he'd used on Shiro. Panting and sweating, the two of them stared at each other with an unspoken respect, and when Antok rose to his feet, he dusted himself off and told Shiro to take the afternoon off but to be back the next morning, same time as usual. He needed time to regroup and plan a new curriculum.

Shiro, flattered and vindicated, hit the showers. Under the warm spray, he considered how things were starting to come easier, to feel less scary and unsurmountable. The culture shock still came in droves, but he was building the confidence he needed to overcome it. Toweling off, Shiro gave himself a mental pat on the back, reminding himself that even when he didn’t believe he could do this, Keith believed in him. With that in mind, Shiro started the route back to his room, now reliably familiar with the layout of the palace to avoid getting lost. He wanted to see Keith and talk to him about finishing Antok’s lessons, about how he was getting used to the Palace. 

However, his triumph of the morning would not last him all day. He noticed that the hallway seemed unusually wide, empty, quiet. Shiro chalked it up to his training, his once refined instincts now back and in full force. Nevertheless, he walked the hall with more poise, checking over his shoulder every now and again. A rising tension that felt like danger filled the air and Shiro was about to break into a jog because of it when Sendak came around a corner and nearly bowled him over.

“Look who it is,” Sendak trilled. His eyes grew bright as he sized Shiro up like a particularly juicy meal. “The Blades’ newest golden boy, the reeking ingenu. How is it, swallowing our culture like a freshly laid egg, consuming it for your own selfish advantage?”

Shiro’s stomach only twisted more. In the past week he could not say that he'd had a single positive experience in his dealings with Sendak. Despite being a high ranking, de rigueur legislator, he was pugnacious when it came to single issue debates and terminally gauche when a situation called for tact. Beyond that, all he seemed to be good at was ostracizing Krolia or dissing Keith, and neither of those things interested Shiro in the slightest. 

Not wanting to justify Sendak’s goading with a response, Shiro attempted to push past him and continue. Sendak had other plans; he matched his step with Shiro and stood in his way, shadowing him with his superior stature, simultaneously grabbing a firm hold of his wrist.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, all oil and contempt. Weighing his options, Shiro ultimately met Sendak’s eyes, trying to remain stoic in lieu of defiant. Sendak understood that the culmination of Shiro's training threatened his insolence, but he’d acted regardless. It was Sendak’s way of bluffing since both he and Shiro shared a place in the higher echelons of the Palace. At this point, Shiro’s position likely trumped Sendak’s, but his foreign status was the disadvantage here. If Shiro made a wrong move then Sendak would be able use it against him until it forced him out of his way for good.

“Galra are bold, patient, and unyielding in their ambition and focus. I have been treated with nothing but kindness while I have been here, despite being alien,” Shiro said as amicably as he could manage. Sendak’s hold on his wrist was growing tighter, which made Shiro buckle under the emotional pressure. If he wanted to get back to his room and Keith safely, he was going to have to play Sendak’s game. “I must thank you for being a contributor of that hospitality, Sendak.”

Another beat, and then Sendak finally released Shiro, stepping back with an easy smile that made Shiro’s stomach turn. “Knowing your place will get you far among the Galra,” he warned. “Play with fire and you may get burned. Apologies for interrupting you. Vrepit sa.”

Shiro watched Sendak carry on as if the exchange hadn’t happened. Ignoring the haughty sway of his gait, Shiro found it strange that Sendak was in this wing of the palace in the first place. It all smelled terribly fishy—Shiro needed to talk to Keith about it.

*

“Keith,” he said, knocking on his door, breathing heavy from his sprint. “Are you there?” There came no answer but Shiro could hear faint noises, akin to blankets rustling or maybe music playing. “Still in bed?” Shiro wondered aloud. He’d hardly seen Keith all week, and was actually starting to miss his company. During the brief moments they shared in the medical wing, Keith explained that he kept busy in the administrative departments helping his mom. He didn’t strike Shiro as the type to enjoy paperwork, so Shiro figured he was probably sleeping in, tuckered out from the busy week.

Still, Shiro wanted to see him. Ironically enough, he didn’t have a code to get into Keith’s room from the front door, so he went to his own room and used the secret entrance, sliding the door open quietly. “Keith?” he whispered. “You awake?”

Shiro had only been inside Keith’s room twice since he’d arrived, and both were very short visits. The room had the same layout as Shiro’s but wider and with a skylight that flooded the room with an ocean of sunshine. It had minimal decoration as well as few personal affects, a picture frame here and there. The most grandiose thing was Keith’s four poster canopy bed, which was empty, blankets askew. However, with the sliding door open, Shiro could make out that the music he’d heard was Keith’s mindless humming. 

“Keith?” He asked asking, raising his voice. He felt terrible about intruding without Keith’s permission, but then he remembered how he met Keith in the first place. “An eye for an eye,” he chuckled to himself. 

That’s when karmic justice arrived with a swift uppercut and Shiro remembered the other half to that platitudinous phrase as Keith walked out of his washroom, hair wet and wearing absolutely nothing at all.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry!” Shiro shouted at the same time Keith yelled “Jesus Christ!” Shiro turned on his heel so fast he did a full spin and then had to turn halfway around again. 

“You scared the shit out of me,” Keith gasped, his voice retreating into the bathroom, presumably looking for a towel. Shiro waited, listening to his footsteps promptly pitter-patter back into the room. Simultaneously he tried to forget what he saw between Keith’s legs as well as come to a conclusion about it. It didn’t matter, but he was still haunted by the claspers comment Keith had made during the bathroom fiasco. Still, it was such a whirlwind that all he could make out was _purple_. “What are you doing back so early!” Keith demanded. “You can turn around again, I’m decent.”

“I finished Antok’s lessons,” Shiro explained, taking a deep breath before turning back around to look at his boss’s face after seeing him completely naked. “And then I ran into—is that my t-shirt?” Shiro asked, dumbfounded to see Keith in the marathon shirt he’d given him to wear all those days ago. 

“Oh no,” Keith’s face burned dark with shame, looked like he was about to run away and never return. Shiro wasn’t supposed to see this either. “No—it was just the first thing I saw!”

“I didn’t realize you’d taken it with you. You could have asked,” Shiro was beside himself, trying to hold back the nervous and mirthful laughter alike.

“Please don’t talk anymore,” Keith begged, rifling through a commode full of mostly black clothing, looking for anything else to wear.

Shiro watched Keith rifle through the drawers, noticing his svelte legs and how the oversized t-shirt brushed the tops of his thighs. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he tried, taking a seat on the bed. “You don’t have to change. It’s just you and me.”

A silence fell over Keith and his avid rifling slowed down. After a few beats, he pulled out a long cardigan and leggings, but set them down atop the commode without changing. Slowly, he walked over and joined Shiro on the messy bed, started to smooth out the blankets and rearrange the pillows.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t ask,” Keith’s shoulders sagged. “I, um, really like the design.”

“It’s not a big deal, I never wore it anyway. You can have it,” Shiro said, unable to hide his smile anymore. It shone through, and he hoped it made it easier for Keith to believe him. Perhaps a change of subject would help. “Did you sleep alright?”

Keith nodded, raising his head up and finally looking at Shiro again. “I did, thank you. But you finished training? Shiro, that’s amazing. Only one other person has been able to complete Antok's lessons so quickly, did you know?”

“I didn’t,” Shiro said. “But I’m surprised; Antok is an incredible fighter and teacher. Who was it?”

Keith watched Shiro carefully and dared him to guess. His eyes were dark, serious. Shiro was still fresh off the boat, how was he supposed to guess? He went through the list of Blades he knew, checking off those whom he knew were long time trainees. Then it struck him like lightning.

“You?” He hazarded. Keith pursed his lips and nodded. His eyes were bright, but not in a bragging or supercilious way. It was clear that he simply wanted Shiro to know the facts.

“I’m not surprised,” Shiro said truthfully, leaning back onto his hands, mentally noting that Keith’s bed was very soft. 

“You’re not?” Keith asked, sounding borderline offended.

“Nah,” Shiro said. “You give off pretty strong _could-kick-anyone's-ass_ vibes.”

Shiro watched Keith process this information with varying degrees of satisfaction, eventually settling with the signature, small smile that made him look so young and plotting.

“Thank you,” he said.

It was always in the forefront of Shiro’s mind that Keith did not appreciate being underestimated. But the reality was that, since meeting him, there had never been a moment where Keith wasn’t wearing his heart on his sleeve. He walked with confidence, he held himself with an unfathomable core strength. He was remarkably beautiful and Shiro was fairly certain he knew it.

“Let’s get lunch together today to celebrate,” Keith said after Shiro silently processed the information. “Away from the Palace.”

“Sure,” Shiro said. “I was starting to get sick of the high-protein qiuoyka-steaks that Antok keeps shoving down my throat.”

“They are gross,” Keith agreed. “But they’ve paid off,” he added, leaving the bed and picking up the clothes he’d left out.

“What do you mean?” Shiro asked, taking the hint and heading back toward his own room. Keith watched him with a raised eyebrow, then made a wide gesture with both hands, fingers splayed wide as if he were palming two invisible basketballs. He made an explosive sound effect.

“I think I get it,” Shiro snorted, leaving the room before Keith could elaborate any further. “I’ll be in my room.”

*

They stood outside a garage while Keith told Krolia they were leaving for lunch over his tablet via text message equivalent. Looking over his shoulder, Shiro read the message and recognized the conjugated _to be_ participle and the noun-gerund for _continuing safety_. There were also several heart emoji.

“Are you reading over my shoulder?” Keith asked, taken aback.

“Sorry,” he shrunk back.

“No, I’m just impressed that you can read it,” he said approvingly. “You catch on fast. Who’s been teaching you?” 

“Ulaz,” Shiro said meekly, as if saying his name would reveal his small crush.

“Ah,” Keith nodded. “Ahhhhhhh,” he nodded even faster, walking toward the garage. “Yes, now I understand.”

“Please stop talking,” Shiro implored him, jogging to catch up. 

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Keith said, adopting Shiro’s earlier words and cadence. “Ulaz has that effect on everyone.”

“I see,” Shiro said, not feeling any better about it.

An elevator in the garage took them several floors down. When they emerged, only a handful of vehicles occupied the level. Keith guided them to a pristine, fire engine red contraption that looked like a total deathtrap. Shiro’s eyes raked over it for seatbelts and he prayed there were some sort of holographic safety harnesses that would appear when it turned on.

“Voila,” Keith presented. “Our ride.”

“She’s lovely,” Shiro said. “I’m honored to ride along.”

“Maybe someday you can take it for a spin,” Keith teased, taking a seat where Shiro thought was part of the engine. “Hop on,” he said. Shiro took a seat behind Keith and preemptively wrapped his arms around Keith’s middle, which was a reminder of how much smaller he was. Or maybe Shiro had put on muscle after all.

“Don’t be scared,” Keith said, leaning back into Shiro’s touch. “I’m a pretty good pilot.”

The bike came to life and the spaces between the paneling glowed toothpaste green as they began to hover. It vibrated under Shiro’s thighs, filled the garage with its low thrumming. Keith switched it into gear and they were soon on their way out of the garage, picking up speed as the left the Palace grounds. The wind whipped past them, the thrill of flight racing through Shiro’s veins. Just when he started to get used to the sensation, Keith pulled into a lot and parked next to a few more clean and shining hoverbikes. Shiro looked behind him and saw the Palace in full view. They’d covered a comically short distance.

“Bit anticlimactic, I know,” Keith admitted, dismounting. “But these guys serve a mean fried umyam that you must try.”

Inside, 50s diner aesthetic married Danish hygge, and it wasn’t half bad. Round tables were sunken into the ground, encircled by burgundy pleather booth seating. Shoes were required to be put inside a locker in order to walk on the velvety gray carpet that covered the entire floor. Airy, fabric lanterns hung from the ceiling and fought with the black and white checker crown moulding.

“It’s a little vintage,” Keith said when he saw Shiro’s scrutinizing. “But I think it’s cool.”

A server greeted them with a toothy smile, seating them at “Yorak’s usual spot.” She promised to have his usual as fast as she could manage.

“So, Yorak?” Shiro laughed when Keith pouted, face dark with a blush. “I’d been meaning to ask since I heard Antok say it.”

“It’s my Galra name,” he explained. “But my dad wanted to name me Keith, which is what I prefer to go by. Besides his old place on Earth and a few photographs, my name is all I have left of him,” he added, softly.

“It’s not really my place to say so,” Shiro hummed. “But I think Keith suits you more.” Keith thanked him and they looked out the window at the Palace. The view reminded Shiro that this was the first time he’d left the Palace since his initial arrival, something he hadn’t really been keeping track of. That set another thought process going. 

“Keith, I know it’s quite a bit of trouble to get back to Earth,” Shiro started, careful with his words. “But I think I need to let everyone know where I’ve been. And also pay my rent.”

“Of course,” Keith nodded. “We have a big outing planned in a couple of days; we can make a pit stop there for certain. Which reminds me,” Keith pulled out his orange tablet, poking and scrolling, then handing it to Shiro.

“It’s been quite a first week. Here is your well-earned first paycheck.”

Shiro gratefully took the tablet from Keith and squinted at the numbers. They were written in Galra, so it took him a bit longer to decipher them. When he did, he tilted his head in confusion and reread them several times, but the digits stayed the same.

“First of all, thank you Keith. But I think there’s been a mistake? I recall you saying ‘double my current salary.’ This is _quadruple_ my old salary.”

“Is it? I’m so terrible at exchange rates. I meant to say quadruple,” Keith said, picking at his nails and looking anywhere but Shiro.

“It’s too much,” Shiro said, returning the tablet to Keith. “I couldn’t possibly accept such a sum.”

“You are six hundred and eighty four thousand lightyears from your home planet, Shiro, doing a job that you did not really agree to do in order to serve a sorry excuse for a prince on a purple-infested vegetarian anarchy planet. Take the money.” Keith’s tone was final and punctuated by the arrival of their lunch, which smelled like a tailgate party. 

Shiro considered Keith’s words while they ate, and eventually accepting that perhaps he did indeed deserve the money. Although he did not agree that Keith was a sorry excuse for anything.

When they were finished with their meal, Keith’s ears folded back in guilt and Shiro pointed it out. “Something wrong?”

“I’ve been meaning to say,” Keith swallowed. “That not only did I take your shirt, I also took your copy of _Radiance_.”

“Keith,” Shiro said, more exasperated than upset. “All you had to do was ask.”

“That’s not the worst part,” Keith said, and Shiro worried to know what else had been stolen from his home. “I can’t even read it.”

“You can’t read English?” Shiro asked, genuinely surprised at the reveal. “How did you know what book it was in the first place?”

“The audiobook cover is the same,” Keith said, hiding his face behind his hands, fingers still caked in the oily residue of the umyam. “I can speak English just fine, but reading and writing are out of the question. My dad tried to teach me, but we never had enough time to really get it down.”

“I can teach you,” Shiro offered despite not really being qualified. Keith’s earnestness was too hard to deny. “We can read the book together.”

Keith’s eyes welled with tears of embarrassment and joy. “But you’re so busy.” 

“So are you,” Shiro countered. “But I think we should make time for each other. Especially since hanging out with you makes me feel less alien,” he added.

“I feel the same,” Keith replied with his honest smile, and his words melted the ice in Shiro’s heart, broke down pillars that had been frozen there for so long a time he could hardly believe he had lived with such a weight. It nearly knocked him over but he stood his ground, downing his glass of water and asking if he could somehow pay for their lunch.

“Shoot,” Keith said. “I didn’t even think about that. I’ll get you a money card or something. Wait, does Earth have direct deposit? Let’s do that. I’ll cover lunch today,” he grinned, pushing buttons on his tablet. Shiro watched him leave a tip bigger than the bill. Rising from his seat, he locked eyes with Shiro. “You can get it next time.”

Shiro felt something in his stomach dip, was surprised by the pleasant warmth in his cheeks. “Yes, sir.”

*

They returned to the palace when the sun was washing the mauve grass orange with its gilt rays, high in the pink sky but on its way down. Shiro found the natural colors of Daibazaal IV to be warm and romantically analogous. Something about the refined palette made Earth’s verdant greens and true blues seem childish.

Back inside the residential wing of the Palace, Keith was describing his favorite episode of _Frasier_ and why it was such a good metaphor for life when he stopped mid-sentence, sniffing the air like an offended cat. His ears folded back and he crinkled his nose. “Do you smell that?” He asked, sniffing more enthusiastically. “What is that smell?”

“I don’t know,” Shiro said, wishing he could be of more help. “Your Galra nose is far superior to mine. Did you know that Thace told me he could smell how old I was? I told him I preferred not to know how he could tell.”

“That’s hilarious,” Keith deadpanned, still distracted by the odor. “I know this smell, where have I smelled this before?”

Keith’s concentration put Shiro on edge and he reflexively checked over his shoulder as they continued their way back to their rooms, reminding him of his behavior that morning.

“Keith, I forgot to tell you that I saw Sendak in these halls this morning,” he said while Keith fiddled with the biometrics on his door.

“That’s strange,” Keith intoned.

“I’m glad you think so, too. I remember Ilun told me he lived in the sanctioned condominiums and not the Palace, so I was confused about why I saw him up here—”

“Not that,” Keith interrupted. “I mean, that is strange, too. But I was talking about my biometrics; they don’t seem to be registering. I can’t get into my room.”

Anxiety crashed into Shiro like a wave. First the strange smells, now Keith was locked out of his room. What was happening?

“Let me try mine,” he offered, pressing his hand to the scanner next door. Nothing. No matter how many times he tried, the scanner rejected his every attempt, eventually locking him out for five minutes.

“Should we get Kolivan?” He asked, starting to get a genuinely bad feeling about their situation.

“We need a technician to fix the door,” Keith said, tapping his foot. “We’ll have to go up a few floors to IT.”

“Alright, let’s do that first,” Shiro agreed, responding to Keith’s level-headedness by not wanting to overreact. 

Making their way down the hall, they called the elevator and Shiro remembered another thing. “Keith, what does ‘vrepit sa’ mean?”

“Another long story,” Keith said. “No translation. At this point, it’s basically a phrase that racist grandpas say.” Shiro nodded, agreeing that Sendak indeed fit the racist grandpa archetype.

The elevator arrived with a chime and they stepped inside. Shiro stood in front of the panel of selection buttons and a scratching in his brain told him to hold the doors open. He did. 

“What floor is IT on?”

“Six,” Keith replied, still sniffing and wearing a puzzled expression. When Shiro brought his finger to the corresponding floor, he noticed the plastic-equivalent of the button disk was slightly raised as if it had been recently broken, and his hunch cracked open like a rotten egg as he pushed down on the loose, faulty button.

Doing the only thing he could think to do in the heat of the moment, Shiro turned on his heel, grabbed a fistful of Keith’s tunic, and launched him through the hoistway doors as far as he could before releasing his hold on the six button and taking cover.

Shiro hated when his hunches were right.

The control panel burst aflame with a rapid hiss, activating an explosion. Shiro heard the guide rails crack and split and could imagine the hydraulic tank detonate as the elevator plummeted three stories down. His world splintered and sang as he dropped and waited to splash into the bottom with popped ears and dark vision.

*

He woke up for a moment and he was underwater, surrounded by schools of distant sirens and whirlpools of yelling. At the other side of his ocean, he saw Keith treading. Then he drowned again.

*

“ _Breaking News here to bring you more information on the attack at Polity Palace today. Two employees were critically injured during a bombing, which is now being investigated by the Blade of Marmora as this report is being given. On site sources say—_ ”

Keith turned off the news monitor and turned to face Shiro, who was lying in bed, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

“It was Sendak,” Keith said without introduction, knowing that Shiro probably wanted answers, even in his injured state. “He’s in custody now, but PR hasn’t disclosed the information to the news stations yet because he was such a high-ranking authority. Can you believe he founded and led the Flame of Purification? No wonder they slipped past our security so many times.” Shaking his head, Keith’s shoulders wilted like heavy flowers. “How did we miss it?”

“Not even Gandalf noticed that Saruman had been corrupted by Sauron,” Shiro rasped. “And Saruman thought himself above the corruption in the first place.”

“I’ve never seen _Harry Potter_ , Shiro,” Keith scoffed, no real heat behind it.

“It’s not your fault,” Shiro coughed. “Is what I’m trying to say.”

“You know what else I don’t understand?” Keith repeated for the third time that evening. “Why you didn’t just say you knew there was a bomb in the elevator.”

“I’m sorry,” Shiro said for the third time that evening. 

“Like, you could’ve just said, ‘Heya Keith there’s something funky about this here six, why don’t we take the stairs and call a repair worker?’”

“Keith, please,” Shiro wheezed, trying to lift a heavy hand and silence Keith with a supplicating gesture. Exhausted, his arm would not respond. “It was all I could think of.”

“Getting third degree burns all over your back and fracturing your leg? That was all you could think of?” Keith’s voice was rising again, singed with helpless, misdirected anger.

“Protecting you,” Shiro sighed. “It was the only way that made sense in the moment.”

Keith’s anger fizzled out like water on a hot griddle and he withered, his eyes falling shut, tightening with frustration. 

“I get that,” he said. “I get that.” 

Shiro thought he wouldn’t ever understand what it was like to be the one who needed protecting, whether it was a club door or crown prince. He would only ever know the side of the bouncer, the bodyguard, the one who followed orders and used their body to do it. He tried to imagine if Keith had been in a situation like this before and what that might feel like to have someone sacrifice themselves on your own behalf, but his lack of energy and by extension imagination stopped him. Shiro knew he had inherent value as a person, but he threw himself into his work and attached his self-worth to his ambitions and ability to be useful. It was something to unpack later, he concluded. For now, he wanted to heal and get back on his feet as soon as he could.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Shiro said finally. “And I’m glad I’m alive.”

“ _I’m_ glad we got you to the healing pods so quickly. It’s a good thing the medical bay is on the bottom floor. That was a good design choice,” Keith noted. “The scarring on your back won’t be so bad,” he added, choking on the hollow optimism.

“Keith.” Resigned laughter snuck into Shiro’s sigh and he finally gathered the energy to reach for Keith, grasping his arm, pulling him down. “Come here.”

Reluctantly, Keith lay down beside Shiro in his hospital bed. Finding a more comfortable position, he nuzzled up close with Shiro, hiding his face in his shoulder.

“How do you feel?” Keith asked, hardly above a whisper.

“I don’t feel anything,” Shiro chuckled. “Galra medical science is incredible.”

“They’re going to put you back in the pods after this IV runs out,” Keith said. “Expect to be tired for a while, but know that you’ll be good as new afterward.”

“Sounds good,” he said, hand stilling on Keith’s head, ears filling with the ebbing and flowing roar of water. “Wait, I do feel something. Like I’m submerged in the ocean, or getting hit by tidal waves.”

“That’s normal,” Keith said, stroking his face. “You’re 60% water. Water doesn’t like when you forget that. You won’t feel so washed out when you remember.” 

He fell back into the sea.

*

Shiro was in and out of it for the rest of the night. He remembered waking up to the blaring lights of the medical bay, surrounded by concerned faces who prodded him and confirmed he was alright to leave. He remembered dragging his feet alongside Keith, one arm thrown over his shoulder. And, albeit vaguely, he remembered Keith saying, “Aw, fuck it,” picking him up and carrying him bodily back to his own room where the biometrics had been fixed and the rooms had been combed for bugs and bombs, or at least that’s what he thought Keith was telling him.

A time lapse occurred, then he was under the covers, in his bed. He could have sworn that Keith had lain there next to him, but when he woke the next day his bed was empty. Taking stock, his body was sluggish, sporting several new scars, and true to Keith’s words, the ocean had drained from his ears and he felt completely fine.

 

***


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there folks, it's that time of the week again!! we're closing in on the final three chapters after this one and i've got some brief housekeeping. i don't feel like i addressed this much at the beginning, but the rating will be going up in later chapters from M all the way up to E. i'm sorry to those who were reading this for the mild rating!! the specifics are as follows: in chapter nine there will be some graphic violence and in chapter ten there will be some explicit sexual content. i won't say much more for the sake of spoilers!
> 
> as always, thank you so much for reading. your comments and kudos have been so much fun to read and see. i said at the end of the first chapter that life has been kinda rough lately, but i'm glad to say that things are on the mend. gotta keep moving forward. ok ONTO SHEITH
> 
> have a great day y'all!!!

In the several days that led up to the outing Keith had described at the restaurant, Shiro kept busy recovering from his lethargy from the attack with check-ins at the medical bay as well as continuing with Antok’s training, which came in abbreviated but equally challenging sessions. The more Shiro improved at taking down Antok, the more Blades he introduced into the mix. Hand to hand combat had been Shiro’s specialty, but Antok sharpened his skills like a mint knife. After the attack, he felt empowered to progress. Evolution was his way of taking back control; it was his adaptability at work. To spice things up, Antok started bringing knives and swords to their fights for Shiro to practice with.

When they finished in the afternoons, Shiro made a habit out of cleaning up and meeting Keith in a little sunroom on the top floor of the palace. Keith claimed to like it because of the privacy but Shiro noticed that people were in and out constantly, mostly to use the well-stocked vending machine near the door.

There in the sun room, they sat on a couch, practiced the alphabet and read _Radiance_ , a book that was arguably not ideal for beginners. But Keith liked it and Shiro knew that learning was only effective if it was fun. Reading together challenged them to move past the attack together, to forgive one another for their decisions through a constructive activity. 

“I already know the alphabet song,” Keith bragged when they sat down on their first day together. “My dad taught me.”

“Prove it,” Shiro challenged jokingly, soon glad that he did. What resulted was Keith revealing that, despite having a decent singing voice, he did not really know the alphabet. Shiro hadn’t really noticed how many letters rhymed until Keith replaced D, E, and G with C, mumbled his way through L, M, N, O, and P as if Shiro wouldn’t notice, then skipped Q through T all together.

“Alright,” Keith said after he finished. “I admit that I messed that up a little.” But Shiro thought it was cute, and Keith was a fast learner. He was singing the proper version after a few rounds of practice.

“Okay,” he said, cracking open the book. “Now which is which?”

“You know the song but not the letters?” Shiro asked, even though it made sense.

“Wait, I do know ‘A’! Is is this one?” 

“Yes, nice job.” 

“And ‘E’!” Keith pointed. “Dad played a lot of EA Sports games.”

“That’s great, Keith. Let’s backtrack for a second. How about ‘B’?”

“Hmmm… it must be this one, right?”

“That’s a lowercase ‘t’,” Shiro said politely. 

“Wait, it’s this one for certain.” 

“That is the page number,” Shiro sighed.

They spent a long time drawing the letters out on Keith’s tablet. After a day, he could match the letters and write nearly all of them. It was fun and validating to watch his progress, but nothing compared to reading aloud to him. Keith was an expressive listener; he never spoke, but his otherwise neutral face wore suspense and joy and sadness interchangeably as the story called for it. More than that, his hand found a place on Shiro’s forearm and his grip tightened and loosened with the rising and falling action of any given chapter.

He started looking forward to that hand.

*

A few days after the attack, Shiro got news that Sendak’s punishment had been determined by the People’s Court. While a large percentage desired a verdict that would have him excommunicated from the planet, it was in the interest of empathy to attempt rehabilitation for him first. Sendak was relocated to a high-security prison on the scrubland-side of Daibazaal IV where he would spend one hundred and fifty years for inhibiting the progress of the Galra Polity through violence and deception.

Having dived through the dumpster fire of the United States government, Shiro had mixed feelings about all of it. But at the core, he felt safer knowing that Sendak would be far away from the Palace and the good people who populated it.

Closure filled his lungs and he exhaled a stressful weight that he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. The relief was reminiscent of being discharged.

*

“You’re good at reading,” Keith told him that afternoon when they met up in the sunroom for their usual session. “I like how you do Severin’s voice.”

Worries forgotten, the strings of his heart pulled taut when Keith paid him compliments so mundane. They were words that he would only hear from Keith and he cherished them. Sitting on the couch in the sunroom, watching the daylight crash onto the grass and passing hoverbikes, Shiro was struck with how he wouldn’t mind completing the trust-bonding process with Keith. If only for a moment and nothing more, he wanted to share a finalized version of their trust in one another. The week they had shared disposed him to it.

The desire overwhelmed him and his mouth moved faster than his brain could. “Keith,” he said, closing the book but using his thumb to keep his spot. “I’m ready to finish trust-bonding with you.” Keith’s eyes blew open wide, his shock physically pushing him back.

“Are you certain? Shiro, I already told you it’s fine. We basically finished it anyway, you don’t have to if you’re not comfortable with it.”

Words were trivial. Shiro caught Keith’s chin in his hand, lightly guided his face closer. Now or never.

In the end, it was not a kiss. It was the chaste, soft brush of lips that Shiro felt comfortable with. It was the kiss that he needed right now, the one that he wanted to share with Keith. A brief tension held them whispers apart after the fact, eyes flicking between the others’ eyes and mouth with the unspoken possible want for more. Then someone walked into the room to use the vending machine, and their presence easily could have been blamed for widening the distance.

“We have trust-bonded,” Keith said, soft and sibilant. “Thank you, Shiro.”

*

 _Radiance_ was a thick book but they were almost halfway through by the time they were ready to go off-planet. Shiro gathered up his things into his duffel, bringing the book along in case they had extra time. Changing into his hyperwarp appropriate armor, he noticed it was a little tight around the arms and chest. He told Keith as much but received no sympathy, only a laugh that said _I told you so_. Keith promised that another visit to the magic-clothing-light-beam room (but not in those words) would fix him right up.

Their departure was marked by the howling of ozone, the thunderous bellows of the mesosphere echoing around the ship as they breached open space. 

The ship’s bridge had been slightly modified to accommodate both Shiro’s and Keith’s behinds, but he found himself flush with Keith anyway, safe and purposeful in his close presence. While the vacuum of space yawned around them and the _Fasten Seatbelts_ sign flickered off and on, Shiro went through everything that had happened in the past two weeks.

His most recent memory was busy burning a hole on the waist belt of his armor where he had sheathed Antok’s gift; the day before they left, Antok had sat with Shiro during their lunch hour, handing him two steaming qiuoyka-steaks and a thin box longer than it was wide, haphazardly wrapped in magenta foil.

“I hear you’re headed off-planet tomorrow. First big mission and all that,” Antok said, urging Shiro to open the gift before eating the steaks. “I thought I’d congratulate you on finishing your basic training. You still have a long way to go, mind you, but I am nevertheless moved by your swift progress up to now.”

Shiro smiled gratefully, working the box open with increasing effort. There was so much tape.

“As you know, my only other student to learn so quickly was Yorak,” Antok reasoned while Shiro fumbled with the estimated three rolls of tape Antok had used to secure the foil. “Although you were far more reserved and level-headed than he was, you both have earned a place among my most memorable students.” 

“Why do you think that might be?” He asked lightly. He almost had the first roll of tape off the box.

“Not because you’re human, I’ll tell you that. I can tell it’s what you want me to say,” Antok chortled, acknowledging Shiro’s curiosity and ignoring his struggle with the box. “You’re both human, but it goes beyond that. I think it’s because you’ve got something to prove. And maybe your humanity plays a part in that; perhaps it is the predetermined destiny of your most primordial selves, the ones that recognize that their species is still so painfully young and defenseless. Galra have existed for innumerable millennia. We have confronted our mortality more times than your planet as seen ice ages or great melts. We have carried our burdens beyond our home planet and forged ahead into unknown territory three separate times. And we will again. But you do not know what that’s like, and you never will.” 

Shiro nearly had the box completely de-taped when Antok stilled his hands with one of his own. Looking up at him, Shiro saw Antok wear an expression so terribly fond and so painfully pitying it made him realize the weighty truth of Antok’s words, how he would never understand the Galra, not for a million years. Antok could see all of Shiro’s mistakes, past, present, and future, line up before him like soldiers marching toward their inevitable doom. Galra outlived humans thrice over, and were drilled in history and philosophy for the first sixty years of their lives. Their lifetimes were just long enough to glean some actual answers out of the harrowing, ever-expanding black hole that was existence. But here Shiro was, on the edge of thirty, sore from heartbreak, tender with new love, synapses overwhelmed with duty and study, and so insignificant to the universe at large while quintessential to the atoms that stacked up to make him. He saw it all in the crinkles around Antok’s eyes, calculated it off the slope of his bushy eyebrows, and in the curve of his kind, patient smile.

“I believe it is your naivety that I like so much,” Antok said finally, when the secrets of the multiverse and life had stopped swimming around the milky way in his eyes. “Such innocence should be protected. And I owe you for saving Yorak,” Antok declared, removing his hand from Shiro’s, allowing him to continue unwrapping the box. The lid fell open to show a glistening dagger, blade pure white with a silver handle and spine. It glittered from tip to hilt, juxtaposed Antok’s words with the maturity of its shape. Or perhaps it confirmed them more, Shiro thought. Knives were as primitive a symbol as anything.

“Because of your lineage, you can never wield a Marmoran Luxite blade,” Antok apologized. “But I got you the next best thing.”

Shiro lifted the blade from the box, held it with reverence as he observed every edge and bevel. The grind was lightly textured, complimented by lavender accents on the quillion and pins. He ran his thumb over the cheek and ricasso, caressed the choil with care. The white of the blade seemed to turn purple when held at just the right angle. Whether it was a statement on his primitivism or a reward for his progress, Shiro knew he would recall the electric charge of Antok’s words each time he held it. 

“Antok,” Shiro said, finding that his voice hardly came at all. It was hard to speak after all that was said and done.

“It’s a Theynium Mechite blade,” Antok explained. “An element that is harvested from the Googlid meteor showers. They fall on Daibazaal IV every hundred years or so. Very strong substance; not as tirelessly reliable as Luxite, but still good. Not to mention they’re sharp enough to cut off an opponent’s extremities with enough force behind it.”

Shiro nearly handed the blade back to Antok, half tempted to refuse the generous gift on principle. But out of fear of appearing ungrateful, he held it closer and decided to say nothing about deserving it or not.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Shiro shook his head.

“Yes, you do,” Antok said, and he walked away, letting his words sink in.

*

In his newly tuned-up, well-fitting armor, Shiro and Keith walked the various floors of the ship to familiarize Shiro with the layout. They visited the chefs in the craft services wing, the technicians in the fuel chambers, and bothered Kolivan on his endless patrol loop every time they ran into him.

“You two don’t get bored of distracting me from doing my job?” He asked with a long-suffering sigh.

“Can’t say I do,” Keith hummed. “You don’t get tired of walking in circles?”

“ _Not when he’s got me to chat with_ ,” came Antok’s tinny voice from Kolivan’s earpiece. 

“That’s sweet,” Keith said in a saccharine tone. “You two chatting the day away then?”

“ _Stop distracting my husband_ ,” Antok shouted. “ _Shove him for me, Van_.”

Kolivan gave Keith a teasing push, carrying on with his conversation and patrol route. Watching him walk away, Shiro really did think it was sweet that they were talking despite the distance between them. As far as Shiro was concerned, Kolivan didn’t deserve to be picked on considering he’d spared Shiro many moments to rest between spar sessions while he visited the gym to dote on Antok. That was how he learned they’d been together for seventy years.

In the end, Keith had other ideas besides appreciating the longevity of romance.

“Come on,” he said, mawkishly grabbing Shiro by the arm. “Let’s go over the itinerary again or something.”

“I brought the book, too,” Shiro offered. Keith’s eyes lit up.

“Yes, perfect.”

One of the many winding hallways brought them to their shared room. Seeing as accommodations were far fewer on the ship than in the Palace, as well as for safety precautions, Krolia requested that they be placed together. Two beds took up most of the room; Shiro laid claim to the one closest to the door.

Shiro sat on the edge of his bed and Keith took a place beside him. He got out his tablet and quizzed Shiro to read the words of the itinerary. 

“These are really complicated official terms,” Keith said. “Don’t be too hard on yourself about not being able to read the formal language.”

“This one says Earth,” Shiro said triumphantly, pointing to the second destination on the list.

“Yes. How about the word right before it?”

“Umm, short rest?”

“Close! It’s the word for ‘an errand lasting four or fewer quintents,’” Keith said. “We didn’t know how much time you needed so we wanted you to have at least two days and one night to take care of business.” It would be a short stay, but Shiro recognized that the Galra were highly efficient; he wouldn’t have been surprised if the original itinerary had them scheduled for two hours on Earth before Krolia got to the planners.

“I intend to accompany you during your stay on Earth,” Keith said. “Is that alright?”

“Really?” Shiro asked. “All I’m going to do is pay my bills and check in with my friends, to be honest. Might be kind of boring.” It would be boring because Shiro imagined Keith would be stuck in his apartment the whole time seeing as he did not dream of what it would be like to walk around in broad daylight with a purple alien, even if it was Keith. His friends would probably be open-minded about it but he wasn’t sure he was in the right mindset to go through with it.  
On the other hand, Shiro worried about how he could capture Keith in words if he did not have the visual comparison. He transcended labels like boss or employer or friend, especially now that they’d completed the trust-bonding process and Shiro was truthfully starting to feel an ache for physical contact with Keith in more than just his chest. 

“That’s fine. I’m interested in buying a few seasonal items as well as souvenirs for the Blades. They’re really big fans of Cool Ranch Doritos.” Shiro nodded thinking about how he didn’t know anyone who wasn’t a fan of Cool Ranch Doritos, all while Keith trained his bright eyes on him. He was impossible to refuse.

“Sounds good,” Shiro hummed, thinking about sharing a bed with Keith again should he want to. He cleared his throat and went back to the itinerary. “So what’s the first destination written here? I can’t read it at all.”

“Some place called the Temple of Haggar. It’s a moon orbiting the ruins of Daibazaal II. My mom said something about picking up data samples to see how plant and animal life are doing there for the Department of Environmental Preservation.”

Shiro had swallowed almost as much history as he had protein steaks, but he was rough on recollecting anything about the previous Daibazaals, let alone the moons surrounding them.

“Can you read the time frame for this one?”

“One varga?” Shiro asked, surprised. “That’s so short.”

“I hear the temple is overrun with wild, quintessence-poisoned creatures,” Keith explained. “It’s probably best if we don’t stay too long.”

The last thing on the list before their return to Daibazaal IV was a planet called Altea. When Shiro asked about why the time frame for Altea said “undefined cell” instead of an actual time, Keith only shrugged, further illustrating his tergiversation by digging through Shiro’s bag for the book and triumphantly snickering when he found it.

He kicked off his boots and found a much more comfortable position at the head of Shiro’s bed, leaning against the wall and propping up pillows behind him. “Come here,” he suggested. Losing his boots, Shiro joined him. Their armor wasn’t well designed for lounging, but Shiro was happy to oblige.

They spent a couple hours reading, a great way to pass the time it took the ship to maneuver around a massive asteroid belt before they could activate the hyperwarp in the direction of the Temple. On the edge of the third hour, Shiro stopped mid-sentence when he felt the heavy, resigned weight of Keith’s sleeping head on his shoulder.

This tended to happen on days when Keith hardly slept the night before, so Shiro wasn’t surprised that the pre-trip anxiety and early start to board the ship had brought them here. The only salient thing that wasn’t routine about it was how all Shiro wanted to do was run his hands through Keith’s dark, soft hair. It was a yearning that he had been suppressing the past few days, but after their lunch at the restaurant and bonding that occurred after the attack, Shiro felt like he was seeing Keith in a new light. He tried to swallow his picayune impulses.

Unfortunately Shiro was not as strong as Antok swore he’d make him. Stomach lurching, he set the book down, made contact with Keith’s head. The butterflies only persisted as he began to run his fingers through his hair.

Brushing the velvet of Keith’s ears, a memory flashed in his mind in which Kolivan had scratched Antok behind the ears once during lunch. Antok, a physical manifestation of the term _goliath_ , had utterly melted under the touch. Unable to quiet his selfish, burning curiosity, Shiro mimicked the motion and indulgently scratched Keith behind the ears.

To his confessed chagrin, Keith did not melt way Antok had. Instead, his ears pricked back and his chest rumbled with an unmistakable purr, one that lumbered through Shiro thanks to their proximity. It was so disarming that he didn’t hear the perfunctory knock until the door to their room was opening.

“There you are—” Krolia declared, stopping when she noticed the position they were in. Her expression changed from irritated to fond, and she lowered her voice to a whisper, taking a careful seat on the edge of the bed. “Has he been asleep long?”

“About ten dobashes,” Shiro whispered back. “Do you need him?”

Krolia did not answer Shiro. Instead, she watched her son sleep for a moment, eyes soft and unfathomably deep. In the days that he had known her, he found her incredibly decisive, patient, perceptive, and loving. While her cultural upbringing and societal obligations made her more nature than nurture, Shiro wondered if she ever wished she could be more of the latter. Either way, he found that the balance suited her and Keith as things were.

“We’ll be going into hyperwarp soon,” she said finally. “He wasn’t answering his tablet. Can you two get to the bridge in fifteen dobashes?”

Shiro nodded and Krolia smiled, standing up. She lingered in the doorway, looking over her shoulder. “Yank on his tail when you want to wake him up,” she said with a sneaky grin. “He hates that.”

He shook his head as she left; if it would produce the same effect as the last time Shiro had accidentally done it, there would be no yanking today. 

On the subject, he searched for Keith’s tail which was incidentally curled around his trunk. It was long enough that the fluffiest part of it rested on the top of Shiro’s thigh, and he couldn’t help run his hand over the downy fur there, applying pressure in an affectionate gesture. At that, Keith shifted slightly with a hitch of breath, and Shiro feared he might wake him prematurely. When Keith settled, he tried petting it again out of sheer inquisitiveness, but it result in an unambiguously erotic reaction that had Keith’s back arching, his fingers flexing, and a high, pinched breath leaving him. Frozen, Shiro’s face went scarlet and he slowly removed his hands, giving them both time to cool off from the comfortable heat of their adjacent bodies. 

Shiro counted the ticks until five dobashes had gone by. The numbers helped slow down his racing heartbeat and embarrassment, as well as gave Keith extra time to sleep before Shiro gently woke him. His eyes flittered open, smiling when he saw his bodyguard, which made Shiro’s heart palpitate with guilt about touching his tail unbeknownst to him. 

“You fell asleep,” Shiro said, clearing his throat of the shame. “We need to get to the bridge for the hyperwarp.” Keith nuzzled into Shiro’s chest in disagreement.

“No,” he drew out. Shiro couldn’t help but agree. He held him there, knowing that time was ticking and Krolia was waiting. “I don’t want to move,” he said. “You’re so warm.”

“Come on,” Shiro smiled despite himself. Clapping Keith’s shoulder, he made to stand up. “Boots on.”

They walked side-by-side, bumping their shoulders every now and again. When they stepped onto the bridge, Shiro felt eyes all over him and he was struck by their needling, knowing quality. A bridgehand caught his eye and nodded approvingly, and another one gave a lewd waggle of her eyebrows. Did Krolia say something to her staff about him and Keith?

Taking their seats, Keith lazily plopped down next to him and went back to resting his head on his shoulder. The stares of the bridgehands and navigators intensified with Keith’s motions, finally fading when Krolia commanded to initiate the hyperwarp. For the sake of the mission, Shiro tamped down the exigent feelings that burned his throat like bile and buckled himself in for the ride. 

*

Post-hyperwarp, the ship slowly rounded a field of debris that crowded the space around them for miles. This corner of the universe was eerily dark, and malaise washed around Shiro’s gut along with the unequivocal concern that everybody thought he and Keith were boning. 

Shiro had thought hard about it as the universe bent around them and they raced past stars and nebulas. After deep consideration, he decided it was probably a Galra smell thing seeing as he would not be surprised if he smelled like Keith all over. All they got up to lately revolved around them rubbing up against each other, or at least that’s what Shiro wanted to do, and with more tail touching but definitely while Keith was awake next time. Ok wait, no, that came out wrong— 

“Detritus successfully avoided,” a navigator announced. “Bringing ship into thermosphere in preparation for pod launch.”

“Excellent,” Krolia said. “Assemble the pod team in Bay 1023.”

“My Lady,” a bridgehand said urgently, pressing a finger to their earpiece. “The medical bay has two of the members with them; they’re currently warp-sick.”

“Jesus Christ,” Krolia said, and Shiro always wondered if she was speaking English then or if there was a Galra equivalent of Christianity and/or organized religion. 

“One of them was the pilot,” the bridgehand added apologetically.

“Bummer,” Krolia said, not mincing words. “That leaves only one alternative, then. Keith, Shiro, you’ll accompany the team.” 

“Cool,” Keith said, hopping onto his feet. “I’m down.”

Obediently, Shiro stood up and followed Keith out of the bridge. “Keith,” he said, anxiety meeting him again for another fateful rendezvous. “Are the others going to be okay if they’re ‘warp-sick?’ Isn’t this the dangerous moon we shouldn’t spend a long time on? I don’t know if I’m qualified to be doing this.”

“You’ll be fine Shiro,” Keith said, taking them down a hallway Shiro didn’t recognize. “Just be on your toes and watch out for anything that tries to come near the scientists. They might ask us to take samples. Can you scrape moss into a baggie?”

“Yeah?” Shiro said, more of a doubtful question than an affirmative response. “I guess I can?”

“Awesome, that’s all you need to do then. Plus, you’ll have me,” he added. Entering a pristine room with nothing but hundreds of thousands of tiny round holes in the walls, their helmets activating as they stepped over the threshold.

“Decontamination starting in five ticks,” a disembodied voice promised. Consequently, a cloudy spray filled the room and left their armor glistening wet. Walking a handful of paces into an adjacent elevator, they were taken to the aforementioned Bay 1023 where a pod and the team of three Galra scientists waited in their onyx space suits. 

“My prince,” one of them greeted. “Thank you for your support.”

“You’re the professionals here,” Keith said. “We will do whatever we can to help, but we also don’t want to get in your way. Please let us know how we can be of assistance. Also, please tell me the pod is manual and not automatic.”

“It is manual, my prince,” the scientist replied with a knowing smile. Keith made a victorious gesture and clapped Shiro on the shoulder. “I’ll see you on the ground,” Keith said. 

“Wait, you’re flying us down there?” Shiro asked. How did he miss that?

“Yes, how did you miss that?” Keith quipped, raising a skeptical eyebrow and disappearing into the cockpit of the ship.

When he looked to them for sympathy, the scientists appeared just as unimpressed with Shiro’s skills of deduction as Keith.

With everyone situated, the crew demonstrated a proper sample gathering to Shiro during their descent should the need arise for it. It was straightforward enough although he could not seem to shake the disquiet that fermented in his gut as they barrelled toward an apocalyptic wasteland.

Their landing onto the moon was smooth, adding to the list of Keith’s talents. Outside the pod, they were greeted by a pale orange gloaming that cast low light over the mint green foliage carpeting the foamy surface. All around, the remnants of old machinery and destroyed ships interrupted the wide expanses of plant life. Above them, the stars were visible. Below them, twisting liana-like roots weaved in and out of the ground like stitches, making it easy to trip.

“Everyone watch your step,” one of the scientists said. “And keep your helmets on. You’ll find the atmosphere here is too thin and nocuous for our taste.”

Keith and Shiro stayed near the pod with the junior scientist who picked at a rash of roots with a tiny hook, filling a plastic baggie with small chunks of it. The vine responded with defiant twitching that was almost shy, pawing at the scientist’s instrument. At one point, it grabbed the hook and sucked down into the surface. It emerged again with the hook, but this time it held two of them, having generated an exact copy of the tool.

“That is neat but more than anything I’m uncomfortable,” Shiro admitted while the scientist sat aghast, staring at the miracle in the vine’s tiny, spiralling grip. “Who was Haggar anyway?”

“It is a bit unsettling, isn’t it,” Keith noted, drawing his foot away from an approaching vine in fear that it would capture him as well. “Haggar was a famous Altean alchemist. She specialized in imitation magic. During the war she became famous for betraying her people and taking up residence in Zarkon’s laboratories and bedchambers alike. It is said that her druids invaded this moon to preserve her quintessence when she passed away.”

It was a gruesome story, especially considering that a person’s soul might have been intertwined with the celestial body itself, but it did put Shiro at ease to have the context to understand why they were here.

A few yards out, Shiro watched the two other scientists set up a machine that resembled an ice core drill, intending to take measurements of the planet’s soil. As it made contact with the sudsy surface, the moon quaked in warning, ceasing after a few tense seconds.

“I’ve decided I hate this,” Shiro told Keith immediately. “I really hate this.”

“We should hurry,” Keith agreed. “Everyone—” 

But Keith’s warning came too late. The vein-like vines shot straight up from the foam, proliferating so rapidly they created a thin ghost forest of pale branches. As quickly as they stood erect, they collapsed and writhed along the ground, pursuing and chasing after the five intruders in thrashing droves.

“Get to the pod!” Keith commanded the scientists. “Leave the drill!”

“But it’s so expensive,” Shiro heard one of the scientists briefly lament over the comm, bolting for the pod as fast as her legs could carry her. The other scientist with her paged the main ship, yelling that the mission had been compromised, calculating the chances of needing an extraction midstep.

While Keith occupied himself with herding the scientists, Shiro unsheathed his dagger from his belt and took a cursory swing at the swinging branches that got too close, taking a sturdy stance like Antok had taught him. The branches he sliced shot back as though they were in pain, slinking away and back into the moon’s surface. Continuing his onslaught, he pushed the vines back, clearing a radius around the pod for take-off.

“Shiro!”

Keith’s desperate voice had Shiro’s head turning on a dime, and to his horror the vines had tangled around Keith in knots, slithering around his wrists and thighs. Shiro watched his airflow get cut off as they braided around his neck, sucking closer in a vice grip.

“Keith!” Shiro kept his feet high as he rushed to close the distance between him and Keith, employing his Mechite dagger to dissuade vines from approaching any further. He slid behind Keith and made harsh, precise movements, digging into the thick vines as fast as he could.

Keith’s voiced gurgled over the comm and Shiro hurried, terrified he’d injure Keith in the process. Just as he freed Keith from their hold, Shiro noticed that the branches had redirected their attention to the pod, snaking around the thrusters with vile machinations.

Weak from air loss, Shiro threw Keith over his shoulder and burst into the pod, handing Keith off to a scientist demanding medical attention and heading straight for the cockpit. He had absolutely no idea how to fly one of these things but he could hear the threatening creak and crunch of the vines outside and prayed to the math gods of probability that a Galra pod and an F-16 weren’t too different from each other.

Altimeters were the same, so were radars, Shiro remembered from the main ship. He could do this. “Talk me through takeoff,” he shouted over the comms. “ _Anyone_.”

“Orange switch is throttle, red knob is fuel mixture,” came Krolia’s urgent voice over the comm. It was staticky and harried and matched exactly how Shiro felt. “The pods fly like cessna planes, Shiro. Get your speed up and jack the yoke.”

With Krolia’s instruction, Shiro had ignited the pod engine, watching the readouts as the dial pins flitted higher and higher. “How many RPMs?” 

“Galra equivalent is 6000. Get out of there Shiro,” Krolia pressed, and Shiro swore the world outside was getting darker, a sign that the vines were swarming in greater numbers. “Go!”

Shiro jerked the yoke back and the pod lurched forward, skidding across the surface as it fractured the grasp of the vines. When the resistance was gone, Shiro steered upward and the pod was free from the moon and the reach of sentient branches. The creamsicle sky faded to black as Shiro pushed them through the moon’s orbit, back toward the ship.

“Shiro, go ahead and turn off the pod and throw it into neutral. We’re going to bring you in via tractor beam since landings can be tricky and we don’t want to put the extra stress on you. How is Keith?”

“Shaken, but fine,” Keith chimed in, his voice even raspier than usual, but Shiro was relieved to hear it in any form. “Thanks for getting us out of there, Shiro. I knew you had it in you.”

*

It would take a quintent to navigate around the belts and debris fields in their way to get them ready for the hyperwarp to Earth, so Shiro and Keith retired to their room after a quick visit to the medical bay where they happened to run into the scientists whose places they had taken in the first place. They shared laughter at the absurdity of it all, which was cathartic for Shiro who kind of wanted to cry.

Knowing that Keith’s windpipe and the whole crew was safe and that Shiro was fully intact brought him peace of mind above all else. In the privacy of their room, Shiro collapsed onto his bed and did some breathing exercises to assuage the thundering ache in his chest cavity where fear instinct met stress response. Silently, Keith sat beside him and rubbed his back in a soothing rhythm.

Their positions changed organically, and soon Keith was cradling Shiro’s head in his lap, running his fingers through his coarse, fine black hair, massaging the nape of his neck.

“Thank you,” Keith exhaled.

There was so much Shiro wanted to say, from _I’m scared_ to _fuck this_ to _thank you too_. Even though Shiro valued honesty over all else, he allowed himself to remain silent instead, soaking up the soothing touch of Keith’s fingers.

He fell into a quiet meditation, ignorant of the world around him. He did not notice when one of Keith’s hands slipped away, nor did he hear Keith’s soft gasp when he brought a hand to his neck, feeling the emptiness there.

***


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there folks ! this chapter is so long. it's somewhere around 9,800 words !! thanks again always for reading. i have officially come to a stopping place for this fic at ten chapters. I am so excited to be sharing this chapter !!!! 
> 
> ALSO ! Very Important: i am going to change the name of this fic. i know that's not a super responsible thing to do eight chapters in... but i don't care. it's fanfiction and i'm here to live my truth. so: **i want you, i need you** >> **this is water.** Thank you for understanding.
> 
> please enjoy !

Due to a handsy navigator, an upset bridgehand, and several buttons that were not intended to be pushed, the ship’s arrival to Earth was delayed by half a quintent. The ship-wide update flashed on Keith’s tablet, which Shiro noticed upon waking from his rest after their stressful encounter on the Temple of Haggar moon. Disappointed that Earth was so close yet so very far away, he became distracted by his delight and embarrassment to find he was still laying in Keith’s lap. Keith’s thighs were hard with corded muscle, but with just enough plush fat around them to make for a decent pillow.

Only human, Shiro lingered for a few ticks longer, half-tempted to wrap his arms around Keith’s trunk and pull himself closer. An image burned into his mind, a vision of pressing his nose against Keith’s warm belly, tracing his hands up his torso, entangling his fingers in his hair, kissing him on his— 

Shiro sat bolt upright.

His feelings swirled inside him like wet laundry on spin cycle, thudding against the walls of his stomach and threatening his whole work relationship with Keith. It was one thing to be in love with your boss, and another thing to be infatuated with an alien prince that you were contracted to protect and also had transgalactic direct deposit with.

The prince in question leaned against the headboard, eyes closed and relaxed, utterly unaware of the emotional duress his employee was under.

Shiro took Keith’s tablet and scrolled through the itinerary update. Clumsily, the tablet nearly slipped from his hands and he accidentally opened one of the educational resource apps in the process of catching it. Now that it was unlocked, he felt inclined to play around with it. He clicked on the search bar at the center of the app.

A keyboard appeared and Shiro gracelessly tapped at them, seeing if he could remember how to spell dictatorship in an attempt to fill in the blanks he had surrounding the tyranny. Eventually, his maladroit fingers managed to type the correct word. When he clicked the search button, a corrective, Galra interpretation of _Did you mean dictatorship?_ appeared at the top of the screen. He clicked that too and soon he was brought to an long-winded disambiguation regarding the different epochs of the former Galra Empire.

He scrolled through, skimming the pictures more than the words since he didn’t trust himself to understand any of the article without constantly checking in with Keith. All of a sudden, a familiar image blinked past him and he hurried to find it again, wondering if had really seen what he thought he’d seen.

Finding the picture again, Shiro felt his jaw drop. Stunned, he began to read the caption in the broken Galra he knew. 

“The team of… rebels… final attack… Zarkon… completion… the empire,” Shiro realized his translating sounded more like inane babbling, but he sort of felt like Nicholas Cage in _National Treasure_. In the photograph were five, warn-torn and weary-eyed rebel fighters. They looked to be a representative sampling of the various species that the Empire had affected. There was someone with six arms, bulging with sinew; someone with white hair pulled into a fierce bun and pink facial markings; someone who looked like a golden retriever crossed with a poodle; and someone whose face was obscured by a green helmet, their iridescent skin catching the light in the photo. At the side of the group was a very young looking Galra boy, with dusky purple skin and stripes that kissed his cheeks. His hair was pulled into a long, tight braid that fell down his shoulder, went almost as low as his waist.

“Keith?” Shiro said, much louder than he had intended. He subsequently woke Keith, who blinked awake, unperturbed by Shiro’s volume.

“What is it?” He asked, the sleep in his voice smoky and languid like poetry.

“Did you coordinate the coup d’etat that ended Zarkon’s ten thousand year reign?” Enthusiastic pointing to the image ensued.

“I mean, I helped,” Keith said and Shiro scoffed, unable to handle Keith’s modesty at the moment.

“And your hair…!”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about growing it out again.”

“Keith,” Shiro said. “How did I not know this about you? This is part of the reason there are so many attempts on your life, isn’t it? Old followers knew your face. Members of the Flame of Purification had their riches and properties rightfully stripped away after you petitioned it and they never wanted to let you forget it. You’re a war hero! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Shiro,” Keith said, his voice taking on a stern note. “Those days are behind me. I used to be someone who thought he was only as righteous as his cause so I took it upon myself to pursue the noblest cause of all. I risked my life and health every waking moment, and believe me it was nearly all waking moments, I hardly slept a wink. But I came to recognize that I didn’t need to carry the universe on my shoulders. I could share the load. I don’t like talking about it because it makes me sick. I hurt a lot of people, and while the end justified the means for many, I’m still on the fence about it.”

“You were a fighter,” Shiro inferred. “All you wanted was to end the dictatorship and destroy the empire.” He scrolled through the article a little more. There were individual profiles on each of the rebels depicted in the group photo, and he recognized the word for “Altea” and “Princess” next to the girl with the pink facial markings. When he found Keith’s photos he felt his mouth open in awe. “The Galra chose you to lead them after.”

“They tried to make us gods,” Keith explained. “But exaltation doesn’t quite do it for me. I teamed up with my mother, Kolivan, Sendak, and many others to reform Galra governing system and left the other planets to their respective rebels. Our empire days were done. We requested that all Galra who wanted a say and a voice gather on a new planet that would become Daibazaal IV. Millions attended the sessions and after one hundred days of talks, we came to a plurality, a consensus. We’ve been a Polity ever since. It’s been a unpredictable fifteen years, but I’m proud to say that we’re better for it.”

“You were just a kid,” Shiro croaked, looking at the pictures again. Keith’s words were a heavy load, and their impending weight almost broke something in Shiro.

“I was advanced for my age. And I had a special asset that no one else did,” Keith said. Looking up, Shiro met Keith’s eyes and his question burned silently. “My greatest inheritance: my humanity.”

“I think it’s interesting how you view it as such a strength,” Shiro admitted. “As if just humanity could turn the tide of a war.”

“I think it’s unfortunate that you don’t,” Keith said. “I spent the first half of my life wondering if there was a point to anything knowing the distance between my parents and their love was more than stars and light years. After my dad passed away, I nearly gave up on humanity. It was so weak, so feeble. You rarely live past one hundred, your hair falls out as you get older instead of growing faster, and you can somehow live without your gallbladders. Unheard of,” he scoffed. After a deep breath, his eyes softened.

“But then I remembered all the wonders of Earth. The sweet and sharp baking soda taste of a powdered donut on my birthday. The bright blue of the sky during a spring picnic. The majesty of a hippopotamus. How people hold doors open since they aren’t automatic, and how people can unintentionally pass on germs because of this kind gesture. Fuzzy socks. Strawberries. These things were special and unique, so I thought maybe I could be, too.”

Shiro watched Keith’s eyes flash with conviction, daring him to contradict him and say he wasn’t special, daring him to challenge the underdog mightiness of humanity. 

Shiro could never.

“You are special,” he said, with all the surety he could muster. “You might be the most special person I have ever had the unexpected pleasure of meeting.”

“I could say the same thing about you,” Keith smiled, and Shiro laughed, although he didn’t mean to. He was unconvinced that he could ever measure up to all the cosmic wonder that was Keith. Of course he could bench press his body weight and a half, and he was top of his class in the air force, and yes, he could bounce at the door of Atlas and spot a fake ID from fifty feet away. But he was no war hero, prince of nothing, and he had only just recently visited outer space.

“Shiro, I’m serious,” Keith said, almost angry. “Don’t act like I’m being trivial.”

“I’m sorry,” Shiro gathered himself. “It’s just, compared to you, I am absolutely nobody.”

“Do you really believe that? How can that be true?” Keith asked, sad like an elegy. “Am I supposed to say that Nobody protected me in the Palace? That Nobody saved my life from asphyxiating vines on a murderous moon? That Nobody trust-bonded with me in the sunroom while we read a book about movies, the glow of the noon light kissing us more passionately than we did each other? Don’t be so dismissive of yourself, Shiro. It’s a tired look and I can tell you honestly that martyrs went out of style with the war.”

“War is not yet unfashionable where I’m from,” Shiro countered, pulling further away from Keith. “You seem to forget that with your blind love for humanity.”

“It is not blind. It is pluralistic: humanity can have its horrible, glaring flaws and still be good as a whole. War happens no matter where sentience lurks,” Keith said.

The rising tension of the room was making Shiro’s mouth dry up. He’d learned something crucial about Keith and Galra history and he had done it by accident, not to mention he was still somewhat anxious about Keith staying with him on Earth. The sting of the omission lingered and his body begged for a drink of water. “I need to get some air,” he told Keith, praying he wouldn’t have to listen to a joke about how fresh air was in short supply in space or something. Excusing himself from the room, his stomach growled and he tried to remember the way to the craft services wing without lifting his head from the flooring of the ship.

*

Quenched and refreshed after eating a hearty lunch, Shiro decided to find the training deck that he knew was on the second floor of the ship. With any luck, Kolivan would be doing his rounds and agree to a sparring match so Shiro could work off the rest of his steam there. 

He didn’t run into Kolivan, but he did diminish his frustration by spending half a varga with a hologram paladin in knife to lance combat. As they battled, he made a mental list of things he planned on doing once he got back to earth: he would pack new clothes, visit his friends at Atlas, and then drop off his gold membership at the gym and take the elliptical for a spin while was there. In continuing to evade the lance strikes of the hologram, he realized how much he missed standard workout equipment.

After delivering the killing strike to the hologram, Shiro wiped the sweat from his brow and paused the simulation. Taking a seat on an unassuming bench, Shiro was surprised to see the training deck door open and even more surprised to see Keith walk through.

“Hey,” Shiro greeted. He wanted to be the first to talk but he didn’t quite know where to go from there.

“Hey,” Keith said. “What are you up to?”

“Just hanging out with the training bots. Was hoping Kolivan might want to spar but I haven’t seen him lately.”

“He’s probably chastising the people who delayed our warp,” Keith shrugged. A smile threatened his lips. “How about Antok’s best student for your sparring partner?”

Shiro’s eyebrows shot up at that. Never once had he considered asking Keith to fight him, despite knowing that he had trained with Antok or now discovering that he’d helped end a 10,000 year war; the nature of their relationship made it hard for those thoughts to occur.

“Um,” Shiro hesitated and Keith caught on immediately.

“Scared you’ll lose?” Keith challenged, giving Shiro a stronger shoulder push than usual.

 _A little_ , Shiro didn’t say. But he wasn’t about to lose to the man he was supposed to be protecting. He got to his feet and shrugged off the armor that he didn’t need for hand to hand combat. Keith did the same and soon they were standing across from each other on the deck, face to face and with as much to prove as humanity had willed to them.

“We should really have a stereo in here,” Keith mumbled, just before he launched himself directly at Shiro, faking out at the last second and rolling behind him and going for the backs of his knees. While he wasn’t anticipating one of Antok’s moves, Shiro knew how to dodge it, and muscle memory pushed his weight forward and then up and into a backflip, evading Keith’s jab.

But Keith was a step ahead of him. He swung a leg up and kicked Shiro’s ankles mid-flip, throwing off his landing, sending him wobbling back a few steps. Without letting him rest, Keith darted forward again, his superior agility being the linchpin of his technique against Shiro. He fell toward him with a flying side kick that Shiro disarmed midair, grabbing hold of his ankles and tossing him away. Keith landed on his feet like a cat.

“Don’t go easy on me,” Keith snarled, and it was desperation that Shiro had barely heard from Keith since they met.

“It’s hard not to,” slipped out of Shiro’s mouth before he could catch it, sidestepping Keith’s right hook. “You were almost killed this morning.”

“Please,” Keith exhaled, punching again and making contact with Shiro’s gut, followed by a ruthless knife hand to his throat. Shiro folded in half and looked up at Keith while he tried to recover. “There are so many fights you’ll be too scared to fight just because you were already down for the count, Shiro. My advice is to remember that the fear is not real and to just get on with it.” Keith dove for Shiro’s legs again, knocking him over and pinning him in a hold. “Like now, for example.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Shiro hissed, flipping their positions by rolling them both over so that he was on his knees and Keith was on his back. If Keith didn’t want him to go easy then he wouldn’t. It could be just like his training with Antok. Keith slid out of the hold easily, bruising Shiro’s ego and arm in the process. Both back on their feet, they circled each other once more with the knowledge that the fight was no holds barred.

Shiro assumed an offensive role this time, taking pot shots at Keith’ head and shoulders, trying to slow him down somehow. When Keith slipped from his grasp, he ran for the edge of the deck, then got his speed up and flew at Shiro, wrapping his legs around his neck. Keith’s knees and Shiro’s back hit the ground hard, and the wind left Shiro’s lungs. He scraped at Keith’s thighs for mercy. It was easy to blame the blush on his lack of air, but this wasn’t the situation he'd imagined when he'd thought about being between Keith’s legs.

Although cheap, Shiro remembered his advantages in the situation. He reached his hand to grab about behind Keith, who went scarlet as he did so, face falling as he realized what Shiro intended to do. Finding his mark, Shiro yanked hard on Keith’s tail, sucking in a deep breath when the pressure of Keith’s legs relaxed their python hold.

“Fuck,” Shiro rasped, coughing with his increased air intake. He shoved Keith and put distance between them.

“That hurt!” Keith rubbed his tailbone, offended.

“Don’t blame me for fighting dirty when you’re trying to convince me to give it my all,” Shiro said, taking a sturdy stance.

“ _Humans_ ,” Keith smirked, standing up again.

As more hits landed their marks, Shiro watched their sparring session go from tense and reluctant to cathartic and carefree. There was a point where Keith had grabbed Shiro by his suit fabric and instead of trying to grapple with him, Shiro fell backward on purpose. It surprised Keith so much that he ended up holding onto Shiro for dear life, eyes wide as he ended up straddling Shiro, his hands scrambling for purchase.

“Trying to feel me up?” Shiro snorted, unable to hide his mirth at Keith’s shocked face. “I see now that sparring was a way around just asking.”

“Stop,” Keith warned, digging his claws in a little. “Although it is an impressive rack.”

“ _Rack_ ,” Shiro chastised, squeezing Keith’s waist and throwing him off to the side with a yelp. Easy banter brought Shiro back to his younger days in the air force when he would flirt while fighting there, too. Just like now, it was the best way to get out every kind of frustration. With Keith, it felt as fun as it did risky, as though they were dangerously close to crossing a line. Shiro was kind of into it.

By the time Keith got the notification from a bridge hand that the warp would be in fifteen dobashes, the two were completely wiped out. They lay on the floor of the training deck listening to Keith’s tablet chirp while trying to catch their breath. Shiro heaved himself up off the ground when the chirping became grating.

“Alright,” he said, silencing the tablet. “We need to head up to the bridge.” He slunk back over to where Keith was laying and offered him a hand up. Keith accepted it and lazily waited for Shiro to do all the work to pull him up.

“Keith,” Shiro laughed. “Come _on_.” Right as Keith made an effort to get up, Shiro tugged him with such force that Keith flew up to his feet and fell flush against Shiro’s chest. Shiro kept his embrace loose but Keith lingered there for a moment before officially regaining his balance.

“Sorry,” Shiro said, mesmerized by the brightness of Keith’s eyes. “Let’s go,” he said, but Keith tugged him back.

“Wait.”

Shiro’s heart pounded in his ears. “What is it?”

“We need to shower before we get up there,” Keith said urgently. “We can’t go up there like this.”

“It’s fine, we can shower at my place. I have extra towels,” Shiro offered.

“No,” Keith urged. Shiro was intrigued enough to ask why but surprised when Keith refused him an explanation, practically dragging him out by the wrist.

In the private showers adjacent to the training deck, the theory that it might be a Galra smell thing returned to Shiro in full force. He attempted to ignore the disappointment that he wouldn’t smell like sweat and Keith, and then tried to ignore the fact that he was disappointed about it. But the scent of Keith and the memory of his legs tight around Shiro’s neck made his blood rush south and sent his hand flying to the cold water dial.

*

Outside of the ship hovered Earth. It was just like he left it.

Cooling down from the hyperwarp, the ship hummed in a steady decrescendo, like the sigh of someone in love. It made Shiro’s chest ache.

“Ready to go?” Keith asked, unbuckling his seat belt. Shiro nodded, feeling his resolve weaken as they walked toward an opalesque platform that Shiro had come to know as the short-distance warp that he and Keith had first used to board the ship all those days ago.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Shiro said.

Keith shifted on his feet where he stood, his brow furrowing in deep thought. “I may know a good way to distract you from the sensation,” he offered, eyes brightening. 

“I wouldn’t be opposed,” Shiro admitted. While he knew he’d at least be more prepared than the first time, he was open to anything that could soothe the resulting discombobulation. “What do you have in mind?”

“Think of it as an extension of our trust-bonding exercise,” Keith said. “Ready for particle transfer,” he told the bridge. Navigators began pressing the necessary buttons and Shiro felt his pulse quicken in anticipation. Keith tugged Shiro around so that his larger figure blocked Keith’s from the view of the bridge, then grabbed a hold of his collar and pulled him down until their faces were very close. Then, right as the bridge confirmed initiation of the particle transfer, Keith gently pressed his lips to Shiro’s.

Sure enough, Shiro was caught off guard. But what was stranger was falling through the fourth dimensional rainbows and god photons and feeling Keith’s lips slowly part against his, allowing the kiss to become open, wet, wanting. Unable to help himself, Shiro tangled the meteors of his fingers in the stardust of Keith’s hair while the solar beams twisted around them.

Earth came rushing toward them as they plummeted, past the dots, past the miniatures, onto Shiro’s apartment landing, all things that he vaguely noticed while focusing on how somewhere in the noctilucent clouds of the mesopause he’d wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist and Keith had started to cradle his face with gentle hands.

Shiro’s land legs wobbled under him and sent them falling against Shiro’s apartment door, still locked in their kiss.

“Keith, I,” Shiro breathed, his throat tight from the lack of oxygen. Keith’s eyes were trained on his, magnetic and guiding like a lighthouse. Shiro could swim in their glow forever. He was going to tell Keith as much. He had to tell him.

The moment ended with an interruption.

“I told you other people would be cosplaying! We should have just dressed up,” came a disappointed voice from next to them. It was a couple, a man and a woman, wearing graphic t-shirts, messenger bags covered in decorative pins and buttons, and two matching trilby hats. Shiro drew his hands away from Keith as quickly as he could, putting distance in between them. It killed him to do so, but it was the only appropriate action to take.

“You guys are up early,” said the man. “Are you trying to beat the registration lines too?”

“I don’t think that’s what they’re trying to beat,” the woman said under her breath.

“Sorry?” Shiro asked, relieved that snogging an alien on his welcome mat didn’t result in a scream and 911 call. He tried to shield Keith from their view in a weak attempt to protect the secrets of extraterrestrial life from noble earthlings even if they were sporting fedora-adjacent headwear.

“Comic con?” The man asked back as though it were obvious. “Don’t tell me you forgot about it,” he said, sounding like he’d known Shiro for years. “I’ve seen you downtown bouncing at that club Zeus or whatever. I’m certain you’ve seen the flyers; you’ll probably be getting con-goers at the club tonight. Fridays are usually pretty wild, after all. Sick costumes, by the way.” The man proceeded to name the source material for their costumes: Shiro was apparently from the Star Trek remake and Keith the new Avatar movie. The couple wished them the best and went on their way, leaving Shiro and Keith alone on the doorstep.

“Okay,” Shiro sighed, overwhelmed and trying to keep it together. “Several things,” he inhaled, digging out his house keys from his duffel bag. Inside, new-apartment-smell greeted him faithfully, particularly potent since he had been gone for a little while. The first thing he did was drag Keith inside and close the curtains to simultaneously keep out the heat from the rising sun and remove Keith from the public eye, followed by picking up his phone from where it was still plugged in and fully charged on the counter.

“First thing. How has it only been five days? We were gone for nearly two weeks.”

“Ah, yes,” Keith nodded, heading straight for Shiro’s couch with a harried look about him. “Time passes more slowly on Earth compared to Daibazaal IV.”

“That’s a relief,” Shiro said, regretting his words the moment his unread messages and emails began to arrive in a stream of colors and sounds as the notifications piled up one on top the other.

“Alright, second thing, and we really need to talk about this,” Shiro started, putting the noisy phone down and taking a seat next to Keith on the couch. He was expecting Keith’s attention, but he seemed distracted by something on the other side of the room. “Keith. That was one hell of a distraction.”

“Think nothing of it,” Keith said far too quickly for Shiro’s liking. “It was nothing,” he reiterated, finally meeting Shiro’s eyes. The longer they held each other’s eye contact, the more Shiro believed the sincerity of Keith’s statement. His expression was stony and closed off, a notable change from the way they had been so open lately.

“It was nothing?” Maybe if he pretended to mishear Keith he could convince him to change his wording. Anything to rewind to the blissful, unforgettable moment where they were swapping spit and particles.

Keith’s mouth was a finite line. It had no slope, no parabolic value, and it did not reach his eyes. He exhaled pointedly and turned away from Shiro without a word.

It was a deep cut. The two of them had spent the past two weeks bonding in ways Shiro could never have anticipated that two people could do, becoming physically close, talking late into the nights, discussing the myriad differences between all sorts of things on their respective planets and whether or not Combos should actually be considered food. Shiro was about to confess his feelings to Keith before they were confronted by the last remaining fans of Joss Whedon.

“I’m going to go back to the ship,” Keith said quietly, standing up.

“Seriously?” Shiro asked, following him and rising to his feet. “You just got here. Why would you—”

“I'll be back tomorrow,” he said, walking away and out the door, not even casting Shiro a second look, even after Shiro called his name twice as he was zapped away by the particle transfer.

Shiro stood in the living room trying to process what the hell just happened. But instead of actually thinking about his and Keith’s actions, Shiro retaliated by doing what he did best: adapting. He could ignore the conflict. However, where strength lies, weakness grows opposite of it. While Shiro was highly adaptable, his methods were not always the best; compartmentalization could become repression. When it came to romantic endeavors, Shiro was seriously lacking in the skills department. 

_It was why Adam left_ , he thought, tearing off his stupid Star Trek-esque armor and throwing it into a grocery bag, feeling sorry for himself. He pulled on hyperwarp-incompatible clothing and scrolled his phone for two hours, cooked himself not one but two grilled cheese sandwiches, then went to the store and bought a coke zero. He passed the Cool Ranch Doritos and almost kept walking, but the arrow on his moral compass spun zealously until he gave in and bought six bags for the Blades.

Home from his grocery run with more than Doritos for souvenirs and a stomach ache from the coke zero, Shiro curled into the couch and made a call.

“Hello?” Came Pidge’s groggy voice. Shiro had probably woken her up if she hadn’t checked the caller ID. He felt some remorse, but he needed someone to talk to desperately, especially upon realizing that he had dumped all of his recent worries, concerns and problems on Keith exclusively.

“Pidge it’s me,” he said.

“Shiro!” She yelled as though Shiro’s voice had set her on fire. Shiro could hear blankets rustling in the background. “Where the hell have you been!”

“It’s a long, unbelievable story,” he sighed. “Can we talk though?”

“Come over to the house immediately,” and with that Pidge hung up on him to emphasize her point. 

Shiro waffled between whether or not he should leave or bring his bags, but he ended up leaving them behind for the sake of easy transportation. As an albeit insufficient token of his regret, he nabbed one of the bags of Doritos as retribution. 

Downstairs, he greeted his car by apologizing for his absence, then made the brief drive to Pidge, Hunk, and Lance’s place. Standing on their doorstep, he raised his hand to knock and Lance opened the door for him before he could make contact with the wood. Wearing only a ratty blue t-shirt and a mismatched pair of Elmo boxers, Lance’s expression was a melange of just-woke-up-and-would-appreciate-some-sympathy-until-I-get-my-coffee and horny-but-could-not-reach-a-satisfying-ending-due-to-unexpected-appearance-of-a-friend. Shiro knew both of the experiences well and how often Lance was prone to wearing them.

“I’m sorry to just show up like this,” Shiro said, offering the Doritos as penance. “I just really need to talk to someone right now.”

Lance looked Shiro up and down discerningly, eyes widening in realization. “What in the—you are completely jacked?”

“Sorry?”

“Did you start doping since the last time I saw you? Why is your _everything_ so huge?” 

“I’m not doping, Lance,” Shiro sighed, wishing that Hunk has answered the door. Lance snatched the bag of Doritos out of his hands and held the door open wider.

“Get in here so you can tell me about your new fitness regimen,” he said, voice still gravelly with sleep. “And let’s get you some juice that won’t get you banned from the Olympics.”

*

The glass of orange juice had been empty since Shiro got to the part about not knowing which bathroom to use. Now he just held it, absently passing it back and forth between his hands while he recounted his two week excursion to Daibazaal IV. Hunk, Lance, and Pidge sat in their respective perches in front of him in varying states of disbelief.

When he came to a stopping point right after Keith abruptly left and right before Shiro binged on American staple foods to fill the void, he took a deep breath and felt lighter after having recounted the story, at last lifting his head to meet eyes with his enraptured audience.

“So yeah,” he said. “And here we are.”

“I wish it would have been drugs,” Lance said longingly. “Drugs would have been so much more believable.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Shiro repeated for probably the fifth time. “I swear.”

“We believe you, Shiro,” Hunk said, pointedly glaring at Lance. “It’s just an absolutely bonkers story. You gotta give us some time to let that set in.”

“I have a question,” Pidge volunteered, raising her hand. “It’s about Keith, if that’s alright.”

“Shoot,” Shiro said. 

“What did you say to him after the couple caught you necking?”

“Nothing,” Shiro shrugged, wishing Pidge’s phrasing was less demeaning toward the absolutely indescribably best kiss of his life. “Just that we needed to discuss it.”

“Why’s that?” Pidge asked, tilting her head.

“I feel like you should have picked this up from the story,” Shiro sighed. “But I like him. I really like him. I think I might be—” 

“Hold that thought. Alright,” Pidge cut him off, holding up her hands as if she could freeze the moment in time. “What did you _do_ after the couple saw you?”

“ _Do_?” Shiro asked. “I tried to block their view of him so they wouldn’t see him.”

“As hilarious as what I’m about to say is, stay with me: was that before or after they assumed you were both in full cosplay?”

“After.”

“And what happened after you brought him inside?”

“I closed the curtains and checked my phone,” Shiro reported. Pidge’s head bobbed up and down as she thought to herself, processing the information. Hunk looked constipated, which was a face he wore when he wanted to say something but knew it would be damaging to the conflicted party at present.

“Say it, Hunk,” Shiro begged. He needed to be put out of his misery, even if it hurt. He had to get past this so he could get back to Keith and get past their own mess together.

“I think I’ll let Pidge take this one,” Hunk wheezed, shaking his head.

“Alright Shiro,” Pidge said, leaning over and resting her folded hands on her knees. “This is what I’m hearing. You experienced the most wild job training of your life in the opposite corner of time and space; it was hands down the most overwhelming experience of your life. Throughout the experience, you had just one person you could always come back to, always rely onfor help and an opinion and it was Keith. That sort of deep bonding happens to kids who go to summer camp, to people who experience trauma together, to university students at RA training seminars who smoke too much weed to get it out of their systems before the semester proper starts.

“All of that happened, and Keith probably got something out of it, too. And you're telling me that after you fantasy kissed in the sixth dimension as though an ultimate divinity depended on your saliva being shared, you hid him as though he was something to be ashamed of? Not to mention that it sounds like you’d been nursing feelings for him for quite awhile without ever acting on them or letting Keith know how you felt. This is a little personal, but I think it’s because still haven’t forgiven yourself for ending things with Adam.”

Shiro considered Pidge’s words carefully, trying to look past the painful slap of her words. She was right, and he’d done nothing to move forward besides get a new apartment, a new job, and mope. An itch began to scratch at his throat, a stinging nettle burn that prickled all the way down to his stomach. "Oh no," Shiro said aloud upon realizing how he had avoided confronting his feelings, said “ _Oh no_ ,” again after remembering how he’d tried to hide Keith and how he’d pushed him away. Whether it was on his behalf or for Shiro's own selfish needs, it was clear how Keith had interpreted the action. 

Laying on the couch that could hardly accommodate his long legs and lanky frame, Lance held up his phone and Cher’s cover of _One of Us_ by ABBA began to drone, tinny and staticky from his tired old speakers. The onus was on Shiro that he’d expected Lance's comic relief to come at an appropriate time at all, and it was his own damn fault that he was sitting in his friends' living room waxing pathetic about his alien not-boyfriend. Disappointed, Hunk threw Lance's legs off from where they overflowed onto his lap, scolded him for being tactless. Pidge was less surprised and as a result less sympathetic to Shiro's plight.

"Alright Shiro," she said, sitting up straight. "It seems like you've arrived at a similar conclusion as me. Let’s hear it." 

"I fucked up," Shiro sighed, resting his head in his hands and attempting to massage away the tension headache that was blooming out from his tightly clenched jaw.

"Yep. What are you going to do about it?"

"I’m not sure… I don't know how to make it up to him," he admitted. "He didn't deserve to be treated like that, especially after how normal he tried to make things for me on Daibazaal IV."

"Well, I think you owe it to him to come up with a hell of an apology. And, more pertinently, somewhere between deciding what you'll say and actually saying it, I think you need to let loose for a bit and externalize these feelings in a safe, productive way." Pidge began to wiggle her eyebrows suggestively and Shiro knew she meant a night out at Atlas. He was certain that everyone in the room would be able to count on one hand the amount of times Shiro had let loose in the past six months. It wasn’t very many times and all of them happened after his break-up. The break-up that he still needed to officially move past.

"Agreed," Hunk nodded, his cheery, booming voice filling the room and bringing Shiro back to earth. "On your recommendation, we got Kinkade to help at the door by the way. He'd be pleased as punch to see you."

"Thirded!" Lance chirped, shuffling through the rest of the album and playing _Dancing Queen_ to try to lighten the mood as well as atone for his previous actions. "When was the last time you let it all hang out, Shiro? Especially now that you're looking like you could be a dancer at Atlas instead of a bouncer. I said _goddamn_."

"Please stop thirsting for Shiro in front of all of us," Hunk implored. "But he is sort of right, Shiro. Come down to Atlas. Drinks will be on the house for you tonight."

"Aw yeah, Daddy Hunk is gonna take care of you!" Lance sang, even as Hunk launched him off the couch completely. 

"What do you say, Shiro?" Pidge prompted, nudging Shiro with her foot. As nervous as he was, the support of his friends meant everything to him. He could get through this, and he had people to fall back on for help.

"Fine," Shiro relented. "I'll go."

*

Atlas was swamped with the Friday night crowd, especially now that it came equipped with a gaggle of excited nerds of all genres, impressive cosplays, and plenty of twenty-first birthday parties. On his third drink, a sweet Moscow mule, Shiro was just starting to feel the haze of alcohol set in. He had danced on and off with a zero-suit Samus cosplayer, then with a stormtrooper in a Hawaiian shirt. Two sexy priests sandwiched Shiro during Earth, Wind, and Fire’s _September_. As they danced, one of the priests anointed Shiro with his white wine while the other aspersed him with a pina colada. It was the most uninhibited fun he’d had in a long time.

"I needed this," he agreed aloud at last, yelling at Pidge over the bar and the erratic bass of a remix track from the playlist of the night that Lance had selected called _Fugue States on Sesame Street - a 70s throwback_. 

"I know you did buddy," she yelled back. "What do you want next? I'm getting backed up so it'll take me awhile to get to it," she said, taking a fluttering stack of dollar bills from a birthday boy wearing a wet and sagging Burger King crown. "Happy birthday, baby," she told him, returning a few of the bills. They spent a while going back and forth trying to give the dollars to the other but Pidge came out on top. 

Moved by the kind gesture of his long-time friend, Shiro made an executive decision. "You know what? I'll help," Shiro said, stepping behind the bar and taking an order. 

"Shiro! It's your night off!" Pidge urged, trying to pour three glasses of wine and push Shiro out from the bar at the same time.

"I want to help," he told her, controlled, firm. "It will help me work through my problems!" He added with the confidence only a drunk person can have. 

Shiro mixed a few cosmos and martinis, winked at the Jimmy Buffett Stormtrooper, poured himself a whisky sour. Then his night came to a crashing halt.

"Evening, what can I get you?" He called to the next patron in line, sorting bills into the register.

"I'll take a kir and two gin and tonics, please," came an accented voice, smooth and soft like cashmere. 

"One kir, two gin and tonics, coming right—"

When Shiro looked up he was expecting to see some young author in town to advertise her book at the con or perhaps a _Doctor Who_ cosplayer trying a little too hard. What he was not expecting was to see someone he knew. 

He didn't know her personally, but he had seen her face before. Where had he seen it? Where in recent memory had he seen someone with the same pink markings on her cheeks, framing her eyes like quotation marks. Her starlight white hair was too soft looking to be a lace-front wig, too well-matched with her dark skin to not be natural. Shiro racked his alcohol-addled brain, regretting how many drinks he’d had. Discreetly, he dumped the rest of his whiskey sour into the slop sink as if the conviction could jog his memory. Still, nothing came to mind. He decided to improvise.

"Do I know you?" He asked conversationally, starting work on the gin and tonics she’d requested.

"Absolutely not," was her response, its bluntness making Shiro’s mouth twitch upward. How could she be so sure? With a cheeky wink, she added, "But I wouldn't be opposed to changing that." 

"Not really my angle," Shiro said. "But I'd love to dance with you."

"Oh yes!" She chirped. "I love dancing," she sighed into the kir that Shiro handed her, trading him with the money. To his confusion which was only magnified by his intoxication, it was a stack of three crisp hundred dollar bills.

“This is way too much,” he laughed. “Sorry, do you have anything smaller?” He handed back two of the hundreds and checked the register to see if he could front the money.

“Oh yes, sorry about that,” she said, digging out more bills from her bra. “I’m not from around here.”

“Is that so?” Shiro humored her, satisfied when she handed him a new stack of bills and at least one of them was a twenty this time. He gave her back all the excess and leaned on the counter to make his interest seem more convincing. “Where from?”

“It’s very far away and very obscure,” she teased, maneuvering her fingers to carry the gin and tonics in one hand. “You’ve probably never heard of it.”

“Try me,” Shiro grinned, letting the whites of his teeth show, hoping he looked like a commercial for sexy toothpaste. He needed to figure out where he had seen this indefectible woman.

“Altea,” she said, eyes twinkling.

Shiro held his expression as firmly as he could, but the memory of the photograph of the rebels came back to him like a strike of hot lightning. This was the Altean princess who had been in the picture of the rebels who had put an end to Zarkon's tyranny. She was unaged, unchanged except for her relaxed smile and easy stance. 

Gathering himself, he laughed lightheartedly. “You got me there,” he lied. “Never heard of it.”

“Brush up on your geography then meet me on the dance floor,” she waved, disappearing into the undulating throng.

“Fuck,” Shiro hissed, the charming smile dropping from his face as soon as she was out of view. He took two more orders before realizing he needed to sober up fast, to get out of Atlas so he could find Keith and apologize and also find out why the hell the princess of Altea was at a gay club with seven hundred dollars of loose change in her wallet. Apologizing to Pidge, he traded spots with Lance who joined them from where he had been playing DJ. On his way out from the bar, Lance caught him by the shoulder.

“Who was that perfect woman you were flirting with?” He asked. “Shiro, I have to know. I have never fallen in love more quickly and I don’t stand a chance compared to you, Dr. Professor Underwear Model.”

“I basically told her I was gay and beyond that I’m pretty sure she’s an alien, Lance,” Shiro said, trying to leave. “And also a princess. Meaning out of all of our leagues.”

“Even better,” Lance sighed, floating along to the bar and riding high on his coup de foudre.

Shiro made a beeline for the front door, didn’t bother to grab a jacket in hopes that the brisk night air would clear his head. Halfway there, he saw Hunk step inside and scan the bar, then the dance floor, his face lighting up when he saw Shiro.

“Just the man I wanted to see,” he said, swinging an arm over Shiro’s shoulder and pulling him outside.

“Hunk, what’s up?” He asked, regretting not bringing a jacket. While he rubbed his arms to conserve warmth, he greeted his replacement. “Kinkade, long time no see,” he called to him, waving. Kinkade gave him a fond look and went back to checking the IDs of the many patrons waiting in line, which sent Shiro’s attention back to a nervous, foot-tapping Hunk.

“Shiro,” Hunk said, adopting his harried way of speaking that he never employed at work to remain convincingly intimidating. He took a few deep breaths, attempted to relax his very high and tight shoulders before looking Shiro directly in the eyes, then asked, “Keith is a purple alien, right?” 

“Yes,” Shiro trailed, immediately suspicious. “Why do you ask?”

“Ok that’s a relief,” he said, deflating. “Because a guy named Keith just came through and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t the same Keith cause I figured that there just aren’t that many dudes named Keith around anymore, especially ones around our age, but at the same time my name is Hunk and how many Hunks do you know, but yeah so I wanted to check in with you anyway cause you’re like my bro, man, you know?”

“Hunk, please breathe,” Shiro implored, trying to grasp onto a modicum of understanding of whatever chapter of the dictionary Hunk had just word vomited. “You said he just came through? When was that?”

“Yes,” Hunk confirmed. “Walked inside not five minutes ago.”

Shiro was fucked. His head was still swimming in the alcohol-induced dizziness, but he needed to confirm that his Keith wasn’t inside Atlas at this moment.

“Give me some physical traits,” Shiro said, needing something to work with.

“Black hair, big eyes,” Hunk listed. “Weird scar on one side of his face. Sort of stacked in a twunky way.”

“More or less than Lance?”

“Way more,” Hunk shook his head. “Lance is a beanpole, and he’s two beanpoles stacked on top of each other compared to this guy. Honestly Shiro he was really hot and if it’s not your Keith then dibs?? Sorry, I know we agreed we wouldn’t call dibs on people anymore out of respect but—”

“Thanks for the help, Hunk,” Shiro said, too inebriated to be having this conversation. He spun on his heel and headed back inside, purpose in his unsteady step.

Back indoors, the throb of the bassline made Shiro’s bones rattle under his skin, made his skull feel like it was the epicenter of an earthquake. Under so much emotional stress, he recognized this as the part where he regretted drinking and was prepared to live an abstemious life. He scanned the room with bleary eyes, craned his neck to see over the dancers. He saw the sexy priests, saw the Altean princess, even saw the Jimmy Buffett stormtrooper making out with the zero-suit Samus, congratulating himself on being the conduit for that interaction.

Then his eyes landed on him.

At the edge of the crowd, sipping a peach bellini with an erudite pinky extended, was Keith.

But it wasn’t his Keith. This Keith had fair skin that soaked up the flashing green and blue and yellow lights. This Keith had only one stripe up his cheek instead of on both sides. This Keith was wearing red, and it suited him. This Keith was not an alien.

Willing his resolve to set like concrete, Shiro pushed off from where he had been frozen and began to swim through the school of manifold bodies, careful not to push even though he desperately wanted to. The closer he got, the more Keith retracted, heading toward what Shiro hoped was a rare but quieter billabong of the club instead of in the open waters of the dance floor.

In the middle of the rabble, Shiro felt an arm tug him backward, and he was surprised to see it was the Altean woman.

“Here to cash in on that dance?” She asked.

“Can’t right now,” he said, apologizing with his eyebrows. “I have to go. But I think I know someone better for what you’re looking for.”

Shiro pointed to where Lance was chatting up a few patrons, doing the only bar trick he knew which was the old water to whisky trick that he used his personal business card for in order to give out his number as he pleased. He looked up in a furtive movement toward the crowd and was devastated to find Shiro pointing at him with the princess beside him, sizing him up.

“He’s a good sport,” Shiro added, resisting to give an alien princess a perfunctory pat on the back. “Go up there and call him boss, he’ll like that.”

The woman shrugged and released Shiro like the small fry he was, back into the crashing waves of arms and bodies while she aimed straight for Lance. Shiro continued his upward climb in the flowing stream, gasped for air when he was finally free from the stagnant heat of the crowd. Keith waited for him on the edge of the room, having snagged one of the high pub tables. He licked the sugar on the rim of the cup and Shiro found himself mesmerized by the pink rhythm of his flicking tongue.

“Keith?” He asked, terrified.

“Hello Shiro,” Keith responded, setting his glass down. “Have a seat, won’t you?”

Hesitantly, Shiro acquiesced, sitting across from Keith with what he didn’t doubt was a shocked expression on his face. “What’s going on? Why do you look like that? When did you get here?”

“I thought you’d—” Keith caught himself by feigning a cough. “I thought this outfit wouldn’t make me stand out so much here. It was for the better that I could blend in instead of inconveniencing you with my appearance.”

“Keith, you were never—” Shiro caught himself right back, almost forgetting the apology that he’d worked hard to come up with. He needed to take responsibility for his actions.

Shiro took a deep breath and adjusted his stance in front of Keith. He tried to do it in a way that wasn’t intimidating but rather felt open, equal. Perhaps naive, he turned his palms up in the Galra gesture that Keith had originally taught him and spoke from his diaphragm, over the music and over his anxiety.

“Keith. I acted thoughtlessly earlier, and because of my ugly behavior I’ve hurt you. It wasn’t, nor has ever been, my intention to offend you the way I did. You are a very important person to me, and to be perfectly honest I view our relationship as more than the connotations that come with just being someone’s boss or friend.” Shiro paused, because he wanted Keith to have a turn to air out his grievances since it was only right.

Keith took the opening. “Shiro,” he started. “You are so good. You have always been kind, and that’s why it hurt so much. Your actions made me feel like I was an eyesore to you, something to be ashamed of. I have always struggled with that when I visit Earth. Even though I’m half human, the form I was born with bars me from having any true place here. I also acted harshly. I was upset that they thought I was a costume. I really hate the Avatar movie, too, so it was salt on the wound that he thought I was an ewok or whatever.”

“That’s _Star Wars_ ,” Shiro interrupted, cursing the alcohol in his system.

“My point is,” Keith said through gritted teeth. “Is that I overreacted, and I’m sorry, too.”

“No Keith,” Shiro shook his head. “This one is on me. I panicked and overstepped a boundary. Especially after—” Shiro wasn’t really sure how to talk about the kiss at this point in their conversation. “Especially after everything you’ve done for me, including how you went to so much trouble to make me feel welcome on the other side of space.” Shiro breathed in and out. He offered his hand in a truce which Keith accepted with a firm shake, making Shiro feel pounds lighter, the relief more intoxicating than the alcohol in his system. Because of it, he held onto Keith’s hand for a little too long.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

“Don’t be,” Keith said, his voice warm, his eyes hooded. Desperate to ignore it until he was sober, Shiro suppressed his true feelings and changed the subject.

“Ok but seriously, how do you look like this right now? Where is all of your… Galra?” Shiro asked, thinking that relying on synecdoche could make this less awkward. It couldn’t.

“I traded my tail to the sea witch,” came Keith’s mordant reply, sipping his drink.

“Okay, that reference was accurate. Unless... did you really though? I wouldn’t put it past space to have witches, too.”

“Funny enough, we do have witches,” Keith relented. “But they’re few and far between these days. Everything you currently see is entirely based in science. It’s sort of like face-mapping technology. I can turn it off at anytime.”

“Sooner than later would be good, I think,” Shiro said too quickly.

“Oh? Had a change of heart on my appearance?” There was no real heat behind his words.

“Keith,” Shiro chastised. “I’ll accept you no matter how you are. But I like my Keith best.”

Something spectacular happened then, and it almost changed Shiro’s mind about what he said. Keith’s cheeks erupted in a rosy blush, an apple glow that painted across his whole face, lightly kissed his ears and even touched his neck. Shiro wanted to hold his hand against it and see if it was as warm as it looked. A smile he hadn’t noticed blooming had found its way onto his face, captivated by Keith’s reaction.

“You can’t just say things like that,” Keith said, futilely hiding behind his glass.

Shiro wasn’t sorry. “Why not?”

“Be careful,” Keith warned, trying not to let his smile crack through. “I’m still upset.”

“Where’s your tail?” Shiro asked, unafraid of Keith’s wrath when he looked so much like a Valentine’s Day card, all bubblegum pinks and candy reds.

“Why are you so concerned about it?”

“I just feel like it has a place in this crowd, you know? Didn’t want it to feel uninvited.”

Keith playfully kicked Shiro under the table. “Are we really doing this?”

“Doing what?” Shiro kept a casual air about him so no one could tell he was featherless but flying, falling into Keith’s eyes at terminal velocity.

“Shiro,” Keith said, and it was just a soundless movement of his lips. “You know what.”

“Wanna dance?” Shiro asked, too loud.

They stood up in harmony and Keith left his glass on the table. 

Back on the dance floor, surrounded by the blazing heat of countless bodies, Shiro and Keith allowed the bass and rhythm to capture them. Their surrender meant Keith’s hands on Shiro’s shoulders, Shiro’s hands on Keith’s waist, their hips dangerously close. As they moved, their bodies became conduits for the beats, dropping, popping, close, and grinding. On several occasions, their faces were separated only by carnal inches where their laboured breaths mingled in the interim. Just when Shiro thought they were going to finally close the gap, Keith pulled back, awestricken.

“Is that Allura?” He asked, pointing and waving past Shiro’s head. His shock was so palpable that Shiro could tell that their dance was over, more so when Keith fisted a hand into his shirt demandingly to stop them both from moving. “What is the princess of Altea doing here!”

“I was also wondering about that,” Shiro sighed, mourning the moment lost.

“You talked to her?”

“She hit on me, actually,” Shiro corrected.

“I find that hard to believe,” Keith smirked, much to Shiro’s offense. “I think you started it.”

“Alright, I sort of started it,” Shiro capitulated. “But that was because I recognized her from the article when I found out you saved the universe. I wanted to make sure it was her.”

“As expected of my palmary bodyguard,” Keith praised, squeezing Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro tried to downplay his preening by hiding his face in the crook of Keith’s shoulder, which Keith responded to with a shocked gasp that Shiro felt more than heard. “Shiro,” Keith’s chest vibrated. “What was your conversation like?”

“I asked where she was from and then pretended to be bad at geography,” Shiro explained, pulling back from his hiding place. He tried to say it in Keith’s ear and was surprised to find a human ear underneath his mop of hair. Shamelessly, he ran his thumb and forefinger down the shell of the ear, as if touching it would break the illusion.

“Shiro?” Keith said, voice quivering. “D-did she say anything else?”

About to give himself up to the moment again and just kiss Keith already, Shiro steeled his resolve yet again. He was going to do this right and he was going to do it when they were sober. Putting a few extra inches of distance between him and Keith made him feel bereft of the warmth, but it cleared his head enough to get their conversation back on the right track.

“How do you know her?” Shiro asked even though he essentially knew the answer. He was tired of talking.

“Well,” Keith started casually. “We became friends when we found out we had a mutual interest in dismantling the tyrannic establishment of the Galra empire. She was the heart of the team, gifted in strategy, empathy, as well as a particularly skilled Altean alchemist. Also we were almost married.” The last bit of Keith’s statement was mumbled so quickly that Shiro nearly missed it. But he did not miss it.

“Married!” He asked, looking Keith in the eye to find where the lie started and ended.

“ _Almost_ ,” Keith stressed. “I called it off for obvious reasons.”

“I feel like I should know these things,” Shiro said.

“It never came up,” Keith shrugged. Shiro couldn’t think of a good or quick response because he knew Keith was right. There was still so much territory they hadn’t covered in their relationship. Despite the late nights they’d spent chatting, they had never gotten that deep into their personal histories. Shiro never talked about his deceased parents simply on the basis that the opportunity to discuss them had never presented itself in their conversations. He didn’t know if Keith was into sports besides fighting and he still didn’t know much at all about his time as a rebel insurgent in the longest war his people had ever fought.

“I’d like to hear about it sometime,” Shiro said, without any of the possessiveness or haughtiness that a younger version of himself would have proudly bore. It was his personal truth that he wanted to know Keith inside and out.

“Let’s figure out why Allura is here first,” Keith reasoned. “She loves to help tell the story about the wedding, too, so you can ask her about that as well.” Grabbing a hold of Shiro’s hand, Keith tugged him toward the bar. “Come on.”

It didn’t take much to move him; Shiro would follow him anywhere.

  
  
***


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there folks !!! ahhh it's chapter nine already !!!! 
> 
> please note that the rating has gone up to M for this chapter for descriptions of violence. next chapter is the last one... can you believe it??? i've got some heavy editing to do for the last chapter, but it should be up on time next week barring any unforeseen events. 
> 
> hope you are all doing well. i won nanowrimo today ! i'm going to take a bit of a break from writing constantly to recharge, then hopefully get right back to writing sheith one-shots. season eight is coming out so soon !!! are you ready?!? 
> 
> alright, that's all for now. as always, thank you so so much for reading. take care !

Keith led Shiro across the club toward the bar. Shiro hardly paid attention to the crowd parting for them, instead enraptured by the warmth of Keith’s hand in his. It was like getting all your Christmas presents early. It was like getting chosen by a kitten in a cat cafe. It was like saying yes to the dress.

“Wait, she seems busy,” Keith noted, watching where Allura was flirting with Lance at the bar. In his head, Shiro congratulated Lance and cheered him on from afar. “Let’s give her a moment. You alright there?” Keith asked, checking on Shiro. “You seem a little dazed.”

 _I’m in love with you_ , Shiro almost said, getting distracted by the lights in Keith’s eyes again. “I’m very drunk,” he said instead.

“Yes,” Keith laughed. “I did notice that. If you want, I have a tincture that can help.”

“Seriously? Like it will sober me up?”

“Exactly,” Keith said, pulling out what resembled an epipen from the bag he had over his shoulder. “I thought I might find you here so I brought it in case of emergency. Are you sure you’re ready to not be drunk anymore?”

“Yes,” Shiro said, unsteady on his feet. _And then I’m going to confess my feelings to you_. It would take hours before he felt fine again; if there was a way to speed up the process then he was happy to comply.

Carefully, Keith unscrewed the cap from the pen and asked if he could have access to Shiro’s stomach. In the sexiest way he could manage while utterly trashed, Shiro slowly pulled up his shirt and flexed his abdominal muscles. Keith nodded approvingly twice, then stuck Shiro with the pen. It was completely painless, although it made him feel like the liquid in his body was being flushed toward the pen. When he felt Keith retract, his head was totally clear, his brain no longer sloshing around like a ship lost at sea.

“Wow,” he said. “Thank you. Galra medical science is truly incredible.”

“This is the most highly stolen over-the-counter medicine on Daibazaal IV,” Keith explained. “University students are always the main perpetrators.”

“No kidding,” Shiro laughed.

“How are you feeling?” Keith asked, returning the pen to his bag.

“Good,” Shiro nodded. “Great. Keith, I need to tell you something.” Right as Shiro grabbed a hold of Keith’s hand, Allura’s voice came calling out over the white noise of the club.

“Keith! Oh my stars, Keith!” She yelled, turning back to Lance and tugging on his arm. “I know him!”

Keith waved to her. “Sorry Shiro. You can tell me later, alright?”

“Right,” Shiro deflated, joining Keith in closing the gap between them and the bar. He greeted Allura with a fond smile, and in turn Allura greeted him with a tight bear hug, lifting him off the ground and sighing with old love.

“It’s so good to see you,” she said, one hand on her hip and shaking her head in disbelief. “I was so hoping I’d run into you at one point or another. Nice outfit, by the way. You know, you probably don’t even need it tonight. Have you seen how many aliens are here?”

“It’s good to see you, too, Allura,” Keith replied, rubbing his arms where Allura had squeezed them so tightly. “I’m just wearing it for fun,” he added. “What are you doing on Earth?”

“It’s a long story,” she nodded. “But back on Altea, High Parliament has just approved a boost in funding toward rehabilitation efforts for veterans. It’s been a long time coming and I’m just so excited about it. You know that I’ve benefited from it, but it’s high time that everyone who put their lives on the line get a break as well. Anyway, we’re looking for a mineral composite that can sustain the oxidation process for some of the prosthetic thermoplastics. We’ve identified several and discovered that two of them can be found on Earth, so here I am! Also I wanted to try Velveeta. It’s very bad, though, I’m not sure why you said it was a delicacy.”

Keith hid a bout of laughter by turning around and hiding his face in Shiro’s chest. “Alteans are super gullible,” he explained, trying to calm down his snickering. When he did, he turned back to her and congratulated her on the political efforts that she had thrown herself into, expressed his regret that the Velveeta was not to her liking.

“Who is this, by the way?” Allura asked, gesturing to Shiro knowingly. “Earlier he was attempting to seduce me with his very straight teeth while he served me drinks, but now I see he is stuck to your side like glue.”

Keith looked at Shiro pointedly when Allura spilled that he had flirted first, nudging him in the side. “This is why I’m currently on Earth. Allura, this is my bodyguard, Shiro.”

“What!” Lance yelped from behind the bar. Allura, Keith, and Shiro were all surprised to hear him chime in, having forgotten that he’d been talking with Allura a few minutes prior. He took on a defensive tone with all their eyes trained on him. “That’s right, I’m still here and listening to the conversation. Shiro, _this_ is Keith?” Lance looked Keith up and down, picking him apart as best as he could, ultimately glancing at Shiro with a confused look. “I thought you said he was purple.”

“I am,” Keith said at the same time Shiro said, “He is.” 

“Just not right now,” Keith added. “You are…?”

“Keith, this is Lance,” Shiro introduced. “One of my close friends who will respect our privacy by not bringing up any conversations that may or may not have happened earlier in the day. Right, Lance?”

Lance looked like he was about to disagree and play the hero by spilling it all, but thankfully Pidge retrieved him and commanded him to either help with orders or do a bathroom check. Whisked away, he left Allura with too many copies of his business card and begged her to come by again before she left Atlas for the night.

“Speaking of bodyguards,” Keith brought them back to their previous conversation. “You’re not here alone, are you?”

“Of course not! I’m here with Romelle,” Allura said. “But I lost her to those two impeccably dressed clergymen.” They looked over to see Romelle delightedly sandwiched between the two sexy priests. It was quite a graphic coterie and Shiro had to look away to maintain what was left of his innocence. Allura gave a resigned shrug. “Romelle has always had a thing for men of the cloth.”

“Anyway,” Keith said, not even bothering to process Allura’s words. “We’re actually going to be heading to Altea very soon, right after we leave Earth in fact. I hope we’ll be able to see you while we’re there.”

“Ah, yes!” Allura cooed. “I’d be happy to give you a personalized tour of the Castle and so on. You are going to love what we’ve done with the courtyard maze, Keith. It was so lovely to run into you, and it was a pleasure to meet you Shiro.” Allura explained that she’d be back to Altea in a few days time, but it wouldn’t be an issue as their time on Altea would likely overlap. Keith and Allura hugged one last time before they split from her, wandering back toward the edge of the club.

“What do you want to do now?” Shiro asked.

“I’m pretty tired, to be honest. But I need to get souvenirs for the Blades. Mind if we run to a grocery store?”

“Oh, um. I already took care of it,” Shiro said. “Unless you need more than five bags.”

Keith’s expression softened and he fixed Shiro with an indecipherable look. “Thank you, Shiro. Well, why don’t we grab a taxi back to your place, then? Might be nice for you to sleep in your own bed tonight.”

“Yeah,” Shiro nodded, distant. He didn’t want to go home if Keith didn’t come with him. “Will you be there?”

Keith rolled back and forth on his feet. “Do you want me to be?”

“Yeah. I do.”

Grabbing hold of Shiro’s hand, Keith began to pull them both toward the door. Before they could get very far, Shiro needed to remind everyone that he’d be gone for a while again and not to worry to much. Saying as much to Keith, he was happy to introduce him to Pidge.

“Hey there, how can I— _Shiro_ ,” Pidge gasped, looking at where Shiro was holding Keith’s hand. “Does Keith know you’re dallying with other men!”

“Pidge, this _is_ Keith,” Shiro said, dragging an exasperated hand down his face. “He’s in disguise.”

“You don’t have to hide,” Pidge told Keith, a little drunk herself. “Many people love you and will continue to love you as you are.”

“Thank you,” Keith said, more like a question than a show of gratitude. “Nice to meet you, Pidge.”

Once Pidge was done with her very sweet but misguided preaching, Shiro was able to let her know that he’d be gone for a while again. He leaned in close and thanked her for all her help and suffered through the suggestive back clap she gave him as well as the “go get him, tiger” that she clipped on to the end of her “don’t forget to use protection” talk. As awkward as it was, Shiro would miss her while he was gone.

Outside, he formally introduced Keith to Hunk and Kinkade. Recognizing a logo on one of Kinkade’s jacket patches, Keith made small talk with him about an apparent common interest in Krav Maga. While Keith asked for advice on elbow strikes, Shiro gave Hunk a fat stack of cash to cover his next month’s rent in case he didn’t make it back before then. 

“Geez, man,” Hunk sighed, storing the money in an inner jacket pocket. “This is nuts. You really work in space.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agreed, still not over quite yet. “Don’t tell NASA.”

“I love knowing something that Elon Musk doesn’t know,” Hunk marveled. “I’ll hold onto this, alright. Be safe while you’re out there.” The end of their conversation was punctuated by a tight hug and a clap on the shoulder from Hunk. When they turned their attention back to Keith and Kinkade, they appeared to be gearing up to demonstrate the most effective ground defensive positions to the point where he was anticipating them duking it out in the streets. Shiro placed a hand on Keith’s lower back to guide him away from Atlas, bidding Kinkade goodnight.

“Next time let’s hit the gym!” Keith called after him as they walked upstreet to grab a taxi. “You and me!”

“Please don’t fight my friends,” Shiro said, hailing a cab on the third attempt. 

In the taxi, they hardly spoke at all. It was late enough that the driver couldn’t care less about entertaining the night crowd, and the unsaid that Shiro was choking on remained in his throat, an emotional occlusion. Keith was just as silent.

He did perk up once and ask, “What was it you needed to tell me earlier at the club? Before we talked to Allura?”

“Oh,” Shiro said, trying to come up with a way to circumvent confessing his love in a taxi. At the same time, when would the right moment present itself again? He took a deep steadying breath and weighed the pros and cons with scrutiny that could make a rival out of Anubis. 

Desperate to maintain some semblance of control, he decided it could wait until morning. “It’s not a big deal. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Alright,” Keith said quietly.

Back at home, Shiro took a shower to wash off the cigarette, alcohol, and sweat cocktail that had stained his clothes. Keith did the same. Adequately hydrated, Shiro crawled into bed, smelling the familiar laundry detergent and nuzzling the soft fabric of his pillows. His room at the Palace was comfortable but in his exhausted daze, all he could think was there was truly no place like home where all of your shit was. 

He turned over to lay on his back, study the patterns on the ceiling and listen to the white noise of the shower running. Doing a full body scan, Shiro realized that he really did feel sober. Beyond that, there were the distinct sensations of being relaxed and comfortable— even while wearing the one pair of color-coordinated pajamas he owned. They had been a gift from his relatives a few years back, but he never wore them since Adam thought they were silly. Shiro knew Keith wouldn’t mind, and they was at a point in their relationship where even if he did, he didn’t care. It was a freeing notion.

When Keith emerged from the bathroom, he was back to his old purple self, much to Shiro’s relief. More than that, he was clad in another one of Shiro’s t-shirts, this time a long black concert tee. Deja vu swept over Shiro like a tidal wave, taking him back to two weeks prior when he’d shared a bed with Keith for the first time. But there was something different this time, something that burned low and fierce in his belly. The circumstances were completely different. He felt just as changed.

“I’ll take the couch tonight,” Keith declared, crossing Shiro’s bedroom toward the living room in a hasty scurry.

“No,” Shiro said, bolting upright. His words and explosive reaction hung in the air like the echo of a gunshot. “Stay here,” he asked, throwing the covers wide. His voice sounded so far away from himself that he feared he might not have actually spoken at all, especially as the pause grew larger between them. When Keith at last was done studying Shiro’s face, he inhaled, then spoke.

“Are you sure?”

Confidence and conviction found confluence in Shiro’s chest. “I’ve never been surer.”

Almost shy, Keith joined him in bed and Shiro turned out the lights. The two of them settled into bed, adjusting under the rustling covers. When their bodies found stillness, Shiro felt his muscles unclench, his face relaxing, and his eyelids grow heavy with sleep, only to fly open when he felt Keith press the length of his body against him.

“I’m glad we made up,” Keith whispered.

“Me too,” Shiro sighed, leaning into his warmth.

“I don’t want to fight. I’ve done so much fighting.”

“I know you have.” Shiro turned over so that they were face to face, and so he could hold Keith as closely as possible. He clutched him tight, thinking about how dumb he was for abandoning his post and his friend earlier that day. Decidedly, there was no place he would rather be (whether it was on Earth, Daibazaal IV, or some distant, burning star) than in Keith’s arms. “Keith,” Shiro said, starting to stroke his soft hair and velvety ears. “I—”

But Shiro was interrupted by Keith’s telltale snoring.

*

The next morning, Shiro woke to Keith violently shaking him by the shoulders, eyes wide and mouth set in an urgent line.

“Shiro! Get up, we have to go!”

“Fuck!” Shiro gasped, his fight or flight kicking in with the volume of Keith’s warning. Throwing off the covers, he shot up and started to change into his armor as fast as he could, tearing off his pajamas with groggy hands and a mind fuzzy enough to forget that Keith was historically shy about that sort of thing. “What’s going on?”

“My mom is paging me with an emergency signal,” Keith explained, and soon he was throwing off his shirt too, changing into his tunic, too hurried to care that he was doing it in front of Shiro. “There’s an unknown ship tailing them and we need to make sure that we get it as far away from Earth as possible. It’s hostile and has been taking potshots at the ship.”

“Who would have followed us out this far?” Shiro wondered aloud. Fully dressed in minutes, Keith started helping Shiro pack his bag. “Do you think it might be the Flame of Purification?” Shiro asked, ushering Keith to the kitchen so they could collect the grocery bags with all the Cool Ranch Doritos, Kraft American Singles, and several Rainier beer cozies for the Blades. 

“No idea,” Keith said, carrying several bags as well as his own duffel bag. “Our main concern is that it’s got some sort of unique cloaking that’s messing with our radars. Are you ready?”

Shiro scanned his apartment one last time, made sure he flipped the gas off, turned out all the lights. “I’m good. Do you want to grab anything?”

Quickly and almost against his better judgement, Keith flitted over to Shiro’s bookshelf and grabbed his dog eared copy of Cixin Liu’s _The Three-Body Problem_. It was hardly the time to be browsing Shiro’s sci-fi section but on the other hand it was something to look forward to once they got out of this mess.

Armed with everything they’d need, they stepped out onto the landing and Keith hailed the ship. Shiro shifted on his feet, eyes flicking between Keith’s mouth and the ground.

“Do you want to—”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Keith sighed, going up onto his tiptoes to meet Shiro in the middle. They soared up through the weather and left everything unsavory behind them, carrying only their bags of souvenirs and the growth they’d made as individuals and as a pair. Pressing deeper into the kiss somewhere between the vapor trails of a commuter plane and the red flashing satellites in Earth’s orbit, Shiro experienced a deep sense of satisfaction as they pulled apart right before their particles settled into their bodies on the bridge.

“Throw your things in a locker and get buckled in,” Krolia barked, either not noticing or purposefully ignoring the enamoured look shared by her son and his bodyguard. “This thing has been slowly but steadily approaching the ship like a fly to honey.”

Without delay, Shiro and Keith followed Krolia’s orders and took their places, buckling in and sitting flush with each other. Shiro wanted nothing more than to speak his mind and spill his thoughts to Keith, despite knowing they shared a mutual, tacit understanding. He’d just had the best kiss of his life for real this time and he wanted a thousand more. But the panicked faces of the crew and incessant beeping from the helm was an audiovisual reminder that this was not the right time. The ship lurched into its quickdrive setting and they were tearing away from Earth, ensuring that the bogey would follow. Krolia sighed with fractional relief when its confirmed pursuit was indicated by the radars.

Abruptly, the bridgehands and navigators erupted into calculating chatter as the ship’s cloaking shut off and they were able to identify its shape and origin.

“Krolia, we have a visual on the bogey,” came Kolivan’s booming voice from near the main control unit.

“Expand to full view,” Krolia requested. A camera stream appeared on the windshield screens and everyone could see that the bogey was a small pod, pristine and sleek. From what he knew about interstellar travel, Shiro felt that the pod was far too small to be capable of it. 

Anyone could tell that Krolia and Keith were related, but not more than in that moment as they shared the same wide-eyed look of disbelief.

“That explains how it got here,” Krolia exhaled.

“Keith, what’s going on?” Shiro asked, at a loss.

“That’s an Altean war pod,” Keith explained. “They’re capable of wormhole travel, which must be how it got past Alpha Centauri. But those kinds of pods have been decommissioned since the end of the war. It makes no sense that one would be all the way out here in the Solar System, let alone in such good condition.”

“Could it be they were accompanying Allura?”

“Unlikely. Impossible, actually,” Keith corrected. “As princess of Altea, Allura knows well that that being seen with such a symbolic vehicle would mean defamation of the Altean monarchy’s efforts to repair and restore the planet.”

“Open the comms,” Krolia said, tapping a few buttons on her annular screens. “I want to see if we can get a message through.”

The navigators and bridgehands responded accordingly but were met with radio silence from the pod. They waited a full five minutes before closing the comms, and the bridge turned to Krolia for a decision. Her mouth drew to one side in thought and she gestured to a Kolivan in deep thought, silently asking for his help.

“This might be irresponsible,” Kolivan admitted. “But we need to get this ship to Altean airspace as soon as possible. Only they will know what to do.” Krolia seemed to approve of the idea immediately, raising her voice to address the bridge.

“Is there any dissent to this plan?” Even in a time of crisis, Krolia was open to the opinions of her crew. Their lives and perspectives mattered as much as anyone else’s; Shiro was profoundly moved by her behavior.

After a long, uninterrupted silence, Krolia nodded and thanked her crew. “Broadcast coordinates to the pod that’ll put us 500,000 kilometers from Altea and get us out of the Local Interstellar Cloud as fast as you can.”

Soon, the ship was pulled thin and ripping through space time. Shiro leaned into it, noting that he was actually starting to get used to it. When they emerged from their warp, a blue and green dot floated outside the ship. In his life, Shiro never would have thought that a planet could look so poetic. Compassing the planet were two overlapping rings that appeared to be Altean-made, rotating slowly and serving a purpose that Shiro would never be able to guess. The elegant and twisting white material they were made from could be seen littering the planet’s surface as well, and it all appeared very mystical.

Unfortunately, it was no time to be captivated by alien architecture. The ship rattled with oncoming fire and a bridgehand gasped at the quake that shook the bridge.

“The pod’s artillery has somehow made contact with our external motor units! We won’t be able to move out of the line of fire!”

“You have got to be kidding me” Krolia paled. “Protocols 17D through 19C, evacuate staff levels eight and up, let’s go.” She spun on her heels to where Keith and Shiro were seated, wide-eyed and nervous. “That means you two.”

“I’m not leaving you here by yourself,” Keith stood up defiantly, falling over when the ship shook with another missile blast. Unlucky for Keith, it only added to the validity of Krolia’s command.

“You need to get to the Castle and get Alfor’s troops deployed. We’ll try to contact them via our comms but until then we need boots on the ground. _Your_ boots,” she emphasized. “We’ll be down soon, it’s a small pod.”

“How can you be sure that they won’t attack the evacuation pods?” Keith challenged.

“Oh, we’ll be sure to keep them preoccupied,” Kolivan promised. When the ship suffered more temblors from the blows, Shiro began to pull Keith toward the pod bay.

“Let’s go, Keith,” he said. “I know you want to stay.”

“I’m,” he paused. “I’m just scared.”

“Me too,” Shiro almost laughed. This was so far above his pay grade. Or maybe it was contiguous with his pay grade and it was his imminent chance to live up to it.

They stayed close to the walls, scrambling for purchase each time the ship shook with an onslaught of blasts, reaching the bay in record time and lining up with the other evacuating staff. One of the hangar marshalls caught sight of Keith and tried to pull him to the front of the line but Keith refused to take any sort of precedence. Shiro tried to be moved by the selflessness but his chest throbbed with anxiety at the thought of dying in space.

The marshalls made quick work of the evacuations, however, and Shiro and Keith were soon in a pod, waiting for the green light to take off. Keith sat in the cockpit and took a few steadying breaths.

“Hey,” Shiro said. He was sitting directly behind Keith and he took advantage of the position by leaning forward and placing a hopefully comforting hand on Keith’s shoulder. “You can do this.”

“We can do this,” Keith nodded.

The marshall gave the green light and they rocketed out of the ship in a steady line toward the Altean homeworld. Everything was smooth sailing until a keening whistle grew louder outside the ship.

“Tell me that’s just the atmosphere burning around us,” Shiro begged.

“We’re not close enough to even be in orbit,” Keith said. “It must be a—”

The escape pod convulsed as a hurling weight barrelled into their left wing. “ _No_ ,” Keith panicked, gripping the yoke tight. “Shiro, activate your helmet,” he instructed. “We’ve lost a wing. I’m going to put us down onto that moon.”

Shiro pressed the corresponding button on his collar, then pressed Keith’s as well since both his hands were on the wheel, straining to hold it steady. Clutching to the walls around him, he braced himself for impact.

Somehow Keith was able to keep his aim true, slowing down their speed enough to skid against the surface for several hundred meters instead of exploding on impact. Shiro couldn’t hear anything, the blood in his ears louder than his and Keith’s yelling and grunting.

As the pod came to a still place, they allowed themselves a brief moment to relax. Shiro wanted to sob with relief, but the more pressing thought was to contact Krolia and let her and Kolivan know that they were shot down.

“We have to get out of this thing in case it blows,” Keith shouted, throwing off his seatbelt. “Before you say anything about how advanced alien technology should be combustion-proof, I have to tell you that we’re just not quite there yet.”

When the door wouldn’t open even with the manual settings, Shiro unsheathed his Theynium Mechite dagger and cleaved the wall of the ship open, allowing Keith out first. Stepping out onto the moon, Shiro was shocked to find its dusty surface a flaming vermillion, a color that he associated with Mars. All around, the planet was punctured with steaming craters which Keith cautioned were hot geysers.

“Don’t get too close,” he advised, watching his step. Shiro watched Keith’s ears prick back, picking up on a sound he couldn’t hear. “Oh my god,” he said, looking upward.

The Altean war pod was headed straight for them.

“Take cover!” Keith yelled, running the opposite direction.

“Where!” Shiro asked, looking out over the moon’s empty, holey surface.

“Just run!” Keith amended, dragging Shiro with him. Shiro almost pulled them back to hide behind the ruins of their ship but was glad his instincts had him escaping on foot as the war pod shot their ship, blasting it into pieces that would join the ash of the moon. They sprinted as fast as they could in the dense gravity. 

There was no safe distance away, especially now that their principal means of communication and transport had been destroyed, but Shiro and Keith came to a screeching halt when the pod landed and the pilot stepped out.

No matter how many times he looked back to this moment in time, Shiro could never remember what he expected to see exit the pod. Whatever alien imagery he had conjured up in the heat of the moment had been forever altered by the reality, the piercing truth of how the universe was a harrowing, unpredictable knot of tangled twine. 

Out of the pod stepped Shiro.

“What the fuck,” the real Shiro said, began repeating over and over as if it were an enchantment that could unravel whatever spell he was under. “Keith, what is that!”

“Oh my god,” Keith clapped a hand over his mouth, looking between them. “It’s like the scientist’s hook instrument on the Temple of Haggar.” Keith clutched at his neck and Shiro did the same, attempting to understand. Once his fingers brushed his locket with Keith’s hair in it, it all made sense when he realized Keith was not wearing his.

“The vines,” Shiro said, the epiphany making him dizzy. “They must have taken your necklace when they were choking you. Then the planet used it to make a copy of me.” He looked up to see that the Shiro who had exited the ship was ominously sauntering toward them. “Keith, he’s wearing the same clothes as me. How will you differentiate us?” 

Keith trembled in trepidation, trying to come up with something. He grabbed Shiro’s right hand and squeezed it three times in rapid succession. “That’s our physical signal,” he declared, still lost in thought. “Hopefully we don’t have to use it. Our verbal signal—if it becomes necessary you decide. Something only we know—”

Keith’s train of thought was cut off by the imposter Shiro breaking into a sprint, his right arm illuminating with an eerie purple glow and knifelike quality as it sliced through the air. Unsheathing his Marmoran Blade, Keith swung it headlong toward the facsimile. His blade met the fake Shiro’s arm in a shower of sparks and they trembled in mutual gridlock, contesting their force against the other’s. They parried against each other’s weapons a few more times before the thrust of their blows sent them flying backward.

“He’s strong,” Keith noted.

“Stronger than me?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, widening his defensive stance. “He’s different from you. Unrestrained, perfidious. Be careful. I have to get in contact with my mom over my radio. You can handle it, right?”

“Only one way to find out,” Shiro shook his head, adjusting his stance and wondering if there was a reality where he could refuse Keith.

The clone’s eyes flashed with treachery and he lashed out at Shiro who met his right hook with a parry from his dagger. Swiftly, the clone disarmed him as though he had learned from Keith’s technique. It was deeply clever, and Shiro almost regretted that he and Keith had shared the same instructor. Antok’s moves were good, but there was no way to circumvolute around and make them his own, at least not mid-fight.

With the dagger spiraling out of his hands and into the dust of the moon, the clone acknowledged the loss and the purple light in his right arm died down, engaging Shiro in blistering hand-to-hand combat. They took turns having the upper hand, moving back and forth like a dance. It was toying with him, Shiro realized. As horrifying and confusing as it was to be fighting himself, he needed to bring this fight to an end as soon as he could. Eyeing his surroundings, Shiro made a split-second decision.

He broke away from their flurry of fists and rolled backward, narrowly dodging a bursting geyser and scooping up his Mechite dagger as he went. Coming out of his somersault, he tried to get his legs under his doppelganger’s and trip him. The clone went down, but it was a feint; he rolled atop Shiro and pinned him to the ground, straddling his hips and trying to catch his wrists. His arm began to glow again and Shiro heard Keith call his name from where he was trying to communicate with Krolia via his space suit’s radio.

Above him, Keith’s Marmoran Blade spiralled through the air, sinking itself into the clone’s back the tip of it poking through his chest cavity from the sheer force. The clone staggered for a moment, his eyes blank, his grip on Shiro loosening fractionally. He took advantage of it to get a solid grip on his knife to tear upward, slicing the clone’s right arm at the junction of his shoulder. Guiding the knife belly and bevel, he rended through the armor and skin, detaching the weapon at the seam. Dismembering a perfect copy of himself made something in his brain scream, but he committed to the cut regardless. With a Theynium Mechite blade, Shiro found that once there was inertia there was no turning back.

The clone lurched forward as though it might wretch, but then its body began to seize with a foreign motion. With a slithering sound that churned the contents of Shiro’s stomach, fungible vines emerged from its body, dislodging Keith’s sword from its torso and snaking out from the shoulder wound Shiro had inflicted.

Shiro growled, trying to push off the monstrosity from where it sat atop him. When his pushing failed, he flipped over onto his back and tried to flip the clone that way. However, the vines from its shoulder curled outward, braided together, and formed a makeshift limb that grabbed a hold of Shiro’s right arm from behind.

“No,” he wailed, as if it could stop the clone from its ministrations. He felt the thorny ends of the vines sink into his skin like needles, and he howled in agony, trying to pull away without inflicting more pain on himself.

Just when he thought he would pass out, Keith came to his rescue, taking up his sword and cleaving at the clone’s neck with a feral rage in his eyes. Shiro couldn’t bring himself to watch himself get decapitated, so he instead tried to crawl away from the damage as quickly as he could, clutching at his arm where disembodied vines continued to burrow into his arm like relentless claws. He felt their prickling travel upward and a foreboding vertigo shook him by the shoulders.

As the vines snaked higher, Shiro’s vision clouded over like swamp fog. His skin felt boiling hot, sweat beaded down his jaw. Unsettling whispers tittered in the back of his head and he nearly conflated them with Keith’s distant shouting, begging Shiro to stop what he was doing. For a second, he couldn’t tell if the vines were asking him to let go, to give in, or if it was Keith. Shiro shook away the voices and locked on to Keith’s voice, his lighthouse in the fog. 

He knew that he needed to stop the vines. Worse, he knew exactly what he needed to do to take care of it.

Shiro picked up his Mechite dagger in his left hand, stumbled over to one of the geysers and held the blade over it.

“Shiro!” Keith hurled, countering a blow from the beast and looking on in horror, trying to decipher Shiro’s actions.

The geyser erupted and the steam painted his white dagger hot pink. In his head, the vines screeched in protest, threatening to make a monster of him. If he gave in, he’d be putting Keith in further danger. However, a resigned sense of peace bloomed in his chest upon realizing he’d rather die than be the potential cause of his pain. 

Praying to gods he didn’t really believe in, Shiro steeled himself for one last time, then thrust the dagger up to his own right arm, fantasizing that the heat would cauterize the wound and that the thin atmosphere of the moon would protect him from choking out when the fabric of his armor tore and his skin became exposed.

He fell backward, reeling with injury, watching where Keith split his wide-eyed horror between Shiro and the clone, which had vines shooting up from where it’s head had been previously. Feeling consciousness leave him like a draining bath, Shiro watched on in helplessness as Keith grappled with the vine clone. In and out of awareness, he watched Keith take the upper hand, toying with his opponent until finally herding him toward one of the geysers. Blinking, Shiro watched the clone’s vines shrivel with the heat of the steam, shrieking in defeat. They deflated, withered to black, curling husks, the clone body slowly disintegrating over the spring.

Vision blurry, a mirage of Keith approached him, blinking in and out of view like a strobe light, crossing leaps with each step.

“Shiro!” He yelled, but it echoed like they were in a wet cave and not on a dusty moon. “Shiro hang in there, please,” Keith begged, pulling Shiro into his arms and trying to shake away the tears that spilled over his cheeks, painting more stripes down his dusky skin. In his delirium, Shiro swore that Keith’s fangs were longer, that his eyes were more wild. He chalked it up to the venom sludge slaloming through his veins. 

A faint whirr of an engine. A confession. A wracking sob. The ebb and flow of a gentle wave.

Shiro remembered he was water.

***


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> folks, this is the final chapter. please note the additional tags and the higher rating. and please enjoy!

Shiro opened his sleep-encrusted eyes, surprised to find himself propped up in a hospital bed. According to the charts being projected on a small multilingual screen beside his bed, his heart rate activity indicated he was lucid for the first time in three days. However, Shiro wasn’t going to put too much stock in his ability to tell time. For all he knew, he had blinked and gone from a desolate moon where he thought he would breathe his last breath to an unassuming, hospital room.

The room was empty but for his bed, a bench, and several monitors that embodied the perfect melange of industrial interior style and elegant design. Gossamer curtains lazily shifted with the central air conditioning, framing a bright window that Shiro wanted to open and look out of. All in all, it was very relaxing. The quietude enabled Shiro’s itchy curiosity and, bracing himself, he examined his right side to take in the damage of the battle he had arguably lost.

Where he was anticipating an immediate sense of absence and loss, he was surprised to see that a limb was there. Instead, seeing the bionic prosthetic that fused with the remainder of his shoulder was oddly anticlimactic. It was seamlessly fired, smooth and sleek. The design was so refined that it matched the corresponding girth of his left arm, even matched the weight. Shiro was expecting a dam failure, a deluge of panic. But all he felt was steady relief and the prickling concern that this maybe was an early stage of grief and he did not yet know how to process the situation.

In the end, he was most disconcerted by the normalcy of safety compared to the absurd circumstances that he last remembered.

The room’s persistent emptiness was a constant reminder of how desperately he wanted to see Keith. He was about to poke at the screen in search of a call button, but a prescient nurse promptly walked inside, greeting Shiro with a warm smile.

“How are you feeling, Shiro?” They asked, adjusting the knobs on a few monitors and updating Shiro’s chart.

“Good,” Shiro replied truthfully. In comparison with his most recent conscious memory, he felt healthy, sane, safe. “Great, even,” he realized as he spoke. The nurse watched him with warm, bright eyes. “Where am I, by the way?”

“You’re on planet Altea, in Lionheart Hospital’s intensive care unit. You were brought here three days ago by the Princess’s personal aircraft, escorted by the Galra prince. You’ve been the talk of the town, I’ll tell you that. That and the surgical team, they were big fans of your physicality and resilience.” The nurse opened the curtains wide and, reading Shiro’s mind, slid open the window and allowed a fresh and warm breeze to blow in.

“That Galra prince you mentioned,” Shiro asked casually. “Is he around?”

“You don’t have to play coy,” the nurse winked. “We all heard your mutual love confession before you went in for your operation.”

Shiro’s stomach sunk like a wounded frigate. He had been hoping for a more romantic reveal, but simultaneously the brink of death was a good time to air out all kinds of secrets and skeletons. Dead men tell no tales, and they don’t tell people how much they mean to them. Thinking positively, Shiro considered the bright side of the cat being out of the bag—he wouldn’t have to worry about waiting for the perfect moment anymore. And there was one more good point: the nurse had said _mutual_.

That made his heart skip so many beats that it garnered the nurse’s attention to his monitor for a moment.

“I’ll let the prince know you’re up. We’ll get you some actual food to eat soon, too. Page us with this button here if you need anything else, okay?”

After the demonstration, the nurse bid him good afternoon, and Shiro was alone again.

In his solitude, he let the wave of nervousness and fear and love crash over him, leaving his body in the form of a disbelieving laugh. He couldn’t wait to say it again now that he was in a state that was both stable and capable of remembering this time.

Planning his words carefully, Shiro heard a bounding crescendo of footfalls in the hallway, followed by a comical squeaking as they overshot his room. His heart shot up to his throat like a firework. Then the door flew open and there was Keith.

Suddenly, the world felt real again.

Keith’s breath hitched in the space between sobbing and laughter, rushing into the room toward Shiro at full speed, stopping again just at the edge of the bed with a wariness that outclassed a bird of prey. Was Shiro alright? Was he stable? Stable enough to have the living daylights hugged out of him? His eyes searched Shiro’s for answers and, relinquishing his planned words the wind, Shiro opened his arms and welcomed Keith with his whole heart.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

Keith sunk forward like a tectonic plate bound for subduction. He crashed into Shiro without inhibition, without fear and Shiro held him close, as close as was possible. Between them, he could feel their chests quaking with thumping hearts. When Keith started to pull back, Shiro held him tight, just a little longer to wade into this boundless pool of devotion. At last, Shiro allowed distance to come between them. He wiped the fat tears from Keith’s face, tried to keep pace with where they slid down his cheeks.

“What happened?” Shiro managed despite his hiccoughing. “How did we escape? How are we still alive?”

“It was Allura,” Keith choked into Shiro’s shoulder, carding his fingers through his hair. “Mom’s ship was still dead in the water but Allura left Earth early on a hunch and made it to us in time. But it still took a minute. I thought I was going to lose you. Again. But I killed that creepy plant clone, Shiro, and we had enough oxygen between the two of us and the atmosphere and _we made it_.”

“Keith,” he said, voice unable to go above an incredulous whisper. The events on the Altean moon came back to him in hazy, distant flashes and he recalled Keith swapping their oxygen tanks, remembered how he kept him warm and awake. “You saved me.”

“Shiro,” Keith coughed, running a cautious hand down his pristine and new bionic arm. “We saved each other.”

Shiro laughed despite himself, tricking himself into thinking he had cut off his own arm in cowardly fear. But Keith was right: he did it to protect them both.

“Keith, listen,” Shiro said, sniffling. “I know I said it before but I didn’t mean to—I mean, I didn’t mean to then, not that way. But I’m glad I did but I just wish I could have done it at a better time, like maybe right now or when we got back to Daibazaal IV or—”

Brushing a few loose hairs from Shiro’s face, Keith silenced him with a chaste kiss, unlike anything they had ever shared before. “Shiro,” he said slowly. “I will accept all the love you give to me, no matter when or where or how.”

“Just let me say it,” Shiro appealed, biting his lip. Keith rolled his eyes and gave him a nonverbal green light. “Keith,” he said, as majestic as Keith deserved. Cheeks aching with the stretch of his smile, he gave himself away. “I am in love with you.”

The words left him in a rush, the floodgates open. His body was lighter than feathers. The only thing keeping him grounded where he lay was the iron grip of Keith’s trembling hand holding his.

“As am I,” Keith said, having a hard time speaking around his big smile. “With you.”

“That’s a relief,” Shiro nodded.

“Well,” Keith mimicked Shiro’s previous cadence and timbre. “What are you waiting for?”

With that, Shiro pulled Keith in for a series of kisses that were better than the Altean equivalent of morphine, more intoxicating than any alcohol, more righteous than justice. Their kisses swelled like waves, ebbing with chasteness, flowing with a fiery heat that kindled low in Shiro’s belly. With cement resolve, Keith tangled his hands into Shiro’s hair and held on tight. Without thinking, Shiro reached behind Keith and pulled him further up onto the bed so that he might sit in his lap.

They could’ve stayed lost in eachother like that for vargas, but were interrupted by a throat being cleared at their door.

“I hate to interpose,” came Allura’s silky, smiling voice, arching an eyebrow when Keith and Shiro shamelessly did not even attempt to put space between them. “I caught wind of the good news that you were up and I wanted to check in.”

“I’m up,” Shiro confirmed, hoping it would placate Allura.

“Also Keith’s mum is here,” Allura added, gesturing for Krolia to join her in the doorway. _That_ got Shiro and Keith to reestablish a respectable distance from each other. The two women crossed the threshold and Krolia was quick to join Shiro at his side.

“Krolia.” He stopped there, unsure of how to continue. Thankfully Krolia didn’t force him to decide because she dropped and embraced Shiro in an affectionate bear hug of her own.

“Thank God,” he heard her say, still vaguely wondering about that Judeo-Christian language and the Galra translation thing. Regardless, he was moved by her words and gesture, squeezing her back in good faith. “I’m so glad you’re alright, Shiro.”

“I’m glad you’re alright, too. Thank you, Krolia.” She pulled away and gathered herself, trying to downplay her sniffling.

“Thank you, too, Allura,” Shiro said. “We wouldn’t be here without you.”

“Don’t worry Shiro, Keith already groveled plenty on your behalf. Think of it as water under the bridge. You would do it for me,” she smiled, waving off Shiro’s words. “On that note, Shiro, we’re working on an official press release for the arrival of the Galra prince and the Regent Queen’s fleet two quintents earlier than expected and the media has been terribly intrigued by the events on the moon. As such, I did not want to disclose any information without your permission first.”

Shiro nodded, stuck on how much information was being thrown at him while groggy from his prolonged sleep and his dizzying kiss with Keith. He thanked Allura purely on the basis that he had no idea how else to respond.

“On that note, my father and I insist that you be awarded for your valorous actions that have shown us well to recognize the latent power of humanity. Not many soldiers have that sort of resolve. In fact… might I ask what went through your head in those moments?”

In all honesty, Shiro wasn’t sure if he was ready to confront those thoughts again yet. Without digging too deep and diminishing the airy feeling he had been cultivating with Keith, he came away with a superficial but sufficient sound bite: “I knew that if I didn’t do something, more people would get hurt.”

Allura watched him with a scrutinizing eye that peeled back the layers off of Shiro’s intentions like cabbage, pulling away until she could reach the pithy center. A giggle left her and Shiro felt momentarily enchanted by the spell of her mirth.

“What a pair you two make,” she mused, tapping her finger against her updrawn lips. “Martyrs, the both of you.”

Satisfied with the bite, Allura left and Krolia followed her out, leaving Keith and Shiro to their own devices. Of his own accord, Keith sloughed off his boots and scrambled up to lay beside Shiro, pulling out his tablet and swiping away notifications. It almost made things seem normal.

“I love you,” Shiro whispered again, a reminder. Selfishly, he couldn’t wait to hear it back. Keith did not let him down.

“I love you, too,” he beamed, avid in his nuzzling of Shiro’s neck.

“What’s going to happen now?” Shiro asked, leaning into Keith’s contact.

“A lot. But we’ll make sure you take it at the pace you need to. You’re going to do rehabilitation for your new arm, then we’ve got the talks to attend in Altea’s High Parliament. We’ll be here for a while, and it will help to have the scientists and doctors behind the technology in your arm along with us through each step of your recovery.”

“I can’t believe that this is real and a part of me,” Shiro professed. “It feels… foreign.” Keith ran a slow, loving hand down Shiro’s prosthetic. 

“Makes you look real badass, though.”

“Thank you, I think.”

“You were already badass before but now it’s like. Level fifty badass. Also, Shiro,” Keith said, opening the camera function on his tablet. “There is one more change you need to see.”

Tamping down the anxiety that swelled with Keith’s warning was no easy feat, but Shiro managed enough to examine the mirror image of him in Keith’s tablet screen sporting not black, but a full head of starlight silver hair.

“What happened?” He asked, touching it carefully, expecting it to be a different texture. It had the same coarse, silky feel to it as before. The more he examined, the more he was into it.

“Allura told me that Altean magic can sometimes affect melanocytes and telomeres in certain species. But it gives you a nice silver fox kind of look, I’d say, which leads back to my original point: Level fifty badass.”

“You always know what to say,” Shiro said, ignoring his reflection, preoccupied with wanting to get his hands on Keith again. “Thank you for letting me know.”

“A lot has changed Shiro,” Keith said, stroking Shiro’s hair with interest. “And we will be stronger for it.” Whatever the future had in store for them, Shiro liked Keith’s attitude about it. He was ready to grow stronger, and to do it alongside Keith would be the adventure of a lifetime.

*

Days turned into weeks as Shiro regained the necessary motor control of his right hand, going from simple movements to workouts to sparring. He worked closely with physical therapists and doctors, spoke with the scientists regarding the prosthetics capabilities.

“While it is very strong, it is not a weapon,” was a phrase the doctors tended to repeat every time they interacted. “Your field of work requires that you hone your body to be as powerful as can be, but just know that this arm will not be able to comply in the same way your left arm can.”

Shiro began pursuing proficiency in dagger wielding with his left hand, relying on his right hand to write, cook, and do other functional things. His therapist had praised him for taking initiative to do so.

During his downtime from the clinic, Shiro spent all the time he could with Keith, following him around, attending High Parliament sessions together, working through the rest of _Radiance_ and having Keith read the words that he could. He found himself lost in thought when he was away from Keith and lost in his eyes when they were together. It was when their bodies were flush with contact that he felt the most found, grounded in the reality that he and Keith were something of a unit, a bonded pair.

As they grew closer and Shiro became more stable in his treatment, he knew he wanted to take the next step in their relationship. He wanted to know Keith intimately. As intimately as possible.

Bringing it up was hard enough considering that they were on a different planet for political talks which eclipsed most of their time. It seemed like every chance they had was interrupted by an appointment, tablet notification, or meeting request. Shiro lost count of how many times he had let his hands snake a little lower, relishing in Keith’s responsive noises, only to have it stop there when someone knocked on their door to chat or when it was time to ring the dinner bell (it was a citywide event and the job of a different citizen every evening, which Shiro thought it was overkill but at least better than jury duty).

On top of that, Shiro had no idea what Galra biology was like outside of Antok’s lessons about the powerful Galra gallbladder and the knowledge that there were always three clearly marked bathroom stalls on Daibazaal IV no matter where they went. Altea only had two stalls which, although similar to his home planet, now came off as foreign. It was jarring to be put back into a box after experiencing the freedom of being box-free for even a short while.

For a split second, Shiro considered asking Allura or Krolia or even Kolivan for help. It didn’t take long to decide that would be a terrible idea unless he wanted Keith’s mom, ex-fiance, and resident father figure to have a conspiratorial relationship with his potential sex life. The thought alone made his blood pressure rise.

Mustering up all the certitude he had, Shiro resolved to just wing it and do the best he could. He knew some things: Keith’s neck was uniquely sensitive; he enjoyed a good scratch behind the ears; and there was the whole tail thing to go off of as well. Above all, he was banking on straightforward communication with Keith through the whole experience. At the very least, he was admittedly turned on at the idea of them teaching each other what felt good, where to touch. 

Their chance finally came several weeks later, after spending much of the day sparring with Allura and studying Altean combat techniques. The two had showered and settled into their shared bedroom, starting off their first free evening in a long while. Sitting flush with each other on the loveseat, Keith essentially in his lap, gripping Shiro by the forearm, they were reading the last pages of _Radiance_ in the loveseat when the chance finally came.

As they read the last words and turned the last crisp page of the book, met only by the flyleaf and back cover, their hands brushed and they let out the breath they had been collectively holding.

Keith sighed, turning over so that his stomach was conterminous with Shiro’s. Shiro wrapped his arms around him to hold him there. “That was so good,” he said. “Thank you for reading it.”

“You helped,” Shiro pointed out.

“Credit where it’s due. All I read consistently were the words ‘stars’, ‘whale’, ‘film’, and ‘fuck.’ You did all the heavy lifting.”

“I’d say you’ve made significantly more progress than that since we started the book,” Shiro said, hoping Keith would accept the praise already. “It was so much fun reading it with you,” he sighed into Keith’s neck and kissing it lightly, slid his hands down his back, traced down the knobs of his spine all the way down to his tailbone. He dared to spread out both palms over Keith’s shapely buttocks, squeezing with intent, eliciting a satisfied exhale from Keith. Shiro slipped his hand underneath the thin fabric of Keith’s pajama shirt, the skin to skin contact setting the fire in his stomach ablaze.

Shiro readjusted their positions, sitting up straighter to establish an angle where he could heat things up with a well-aimed and puissant roll of his hips. In response, Keith made a buoyant noise, rolling back with even more force. Between them, the electricity grew charged to a new level, a lightning storm of unresolved sexual tension that had been building since Keith had first persuaded his way into Shiro’s bed.

“Keith,” he said, voice several registers lower with his cogent arousal. He fisted a hand in the hair that fell down Keith’s neck, holding lightly, meaningfully. “I want you.” Their wanton grinding came to a still place and Keith searched Shiro’s face, his pupils dilated, his breathing heavy. Lips parted from the exertion, he ran his pink tongue over them and brought a hand to Shiro’s chest, just over his heart.

“I want you, too, Shiro.”

That was all he needed to hear. Standing up and taking Keith with him, Shiro moved them from the loveseat to their bed, an august, king-sized bouquet of silk and feathers. They suited Keith in all his understated, regal ways, made Shiro feel common like the rogue who had charmed his way into the prince’s bedchambers. Shiro helped Keith out of his shirt, gazing upon his bare chest like it was rare treasure.

Without his shirt, Shiro was able to see all the muscular definition of Keith’s abs at this close distance, follow the footprints of his rivulose veins, trace his stripes all the way down their winding reaches. Running his fingers lightly over the pigmented skin, he was hypnotized by Keith’s picayune reactions, his acute pleasure that he seemed embarrassed to share.

“I’ve got you,” Shiro told him, massaging his hips, leaning down for a kiss that turned wet. Momentarily sated, he moved down Keith’s clavicle, down his chest, experimented with a pert nipple between his teeth which made Keith’s jaw drop in reply. “Feel good?”

“Yes,” Keith nodded, arching into the heat. Shiro could stay and stimulate Keith like this for hours, but he wanted more. Simple could wait. He wanted a mess.

Shiro let his hand wander lower, making eye contact with Keith as he ran a curious hand over the bulge in his boxers, a purely instinctual motion. But Keith pressed into Shiro’s palm and Shiro could feel a swelling hardness behind the fabric.

“How do you want to do this?” Shiro asked, confidence at last faltering in the face of the unknown. He used refined gestures to further clarify his implications ( _you, me, pelvic thrusting_ ).

“Let’s just,” Keith huffed, at a loss. “Take off all our clothes and show each other what we’ve got.”

It was the fairest way to go about it, Shiro agreed. Decoupling, they took up real estate in their respective sides of the bed, shimmying out of their clothes and shedding the rest of their protective layers. 

Settling into a kneeling position, Shiro had his vulnerabilities on display as did Keith. They observed each other from afar not saying anything at all, which was not conducive to upping Shiro’s confidence levels by any means.

“You really do not have claspers,” Keith said, clearing his throat. Then, in a very calm but confused way, asked, “Is it always that big?”

In a bout of anxiety and not knowing what to do in a situation like this, Shiro came out and said, “This is my penis,” in the most overly clinical way. He was not unable to find the humor in the situation, but he did resist laughing. “You don’t seem to have claspers either, though,” he noticed, feeling bad for what he had assumed about Keith unconsciously after their first bathroom ordeal.

“No,” Keith said, matter-of-fact. “I do not.”

They could have a long talk about human and Galra reproductive systems and genitalia any other day. Right now, all Shiro wanted to do was make Keith feel good. Ever protean, he broke the ice by scooting closer to Keith, bringing their lips together in an searing kiss, taking one of Keith’s hands into his own, then guiding it down to his swelling cock, groaned when Keith instinctually wrapped his fingers around it and stroked upward.

“Yes,” Shiro sighed, retracting from the kiss so he could focus on Keith’s hand on him. “Like that, a little harder is okay, too.” Keith obliged him, adopting a firm pressure and slowly pulling him off. “Ahh, too hard maybe,” he said when Keith squeezed him like he was milking a cow. Keith’s eyes went wide, full of fear, but Shiro finally released the laughter that was boiling inside him and Keith joined him.

“This is wild,” Shiro said between giggles. “How did your dad do it?”

“Please don’t talk about my dad when I’ve got my hand on your penis,” Keith warned, wiping away a mirthful tear. In his head, Shiro made a note to talk about acceptable terms for referring to all their bits for later since _penis_ ranked fairly low on the Hot Names to Call One’s Dick list, which only made him snicker again at the absurdity of it all.

“Let’s laugh, okay? Your body is amazing and this is wild and I’m so glad we’re in it together.” The words tumbled down and out of Shiro like a heavy slab from an avalanche, or a round of thunderous applause to their attempted interspecies copulation.

They shared a series of reassuring kisses and got right back to it. More confidently, Keith adjusted his grip and traced tantalizing fingers over the head, lightly pet his slit. Shiro hissed, impressed with Keith’s nuanced touch, bold and experimental despite being put in such a unique position. When he was able to keep his eyes open and focused, he noticed Keith watching him carefully, his eyes brighter than he had ever seen them.

“Wait,” Shiro begged. “This is intense, I’m getting close.”

“Close to what?” Keith asked, and at first Shiro thought he was being serious until he saw the sly angle of his smirk. Laughter bloomed between them again like a ripple in a pond. Wanting to upset the placidness more, Shiro pushed Keith down and sat between his legs. They held eye contact as Shiro snaked his hands over Keith’s chest again, traveling over his nipples with slow deliberation, then moving down to his hottest place.

In invitation, Keith fearlessly opened his legs. Placing two sure hands on either of Keith’s knees, Shiro pressed them even wider. Then he looked down to observe what, to his knowledge, had only ever just been _purple_.

Keith had a member not too far off from a human penis, only it was sheathed in a soft looking foreskin that pulled back to reveal a swollen pink head. He had a pair of testicles and behind it there were folds of skin that veiled a puckering pink hole. There were more details that caught Shiro’s attention, but he sat back to take a deep breath and check in with Keith.

“Alright Yorak,” Shiro grinned. “You gotta help me out a little here.”

“Touch here,” Keith said, his face dusky and flushed, ears folded back in embarrassment that he masked well otherwise. His hand fell to the base of his cock and Shiro followed suit. He mimicked what would please him and Keith seemed to respond positively. While Shiro slowly pulled him off, Keith slowly began to circle his hole with two fingers, then with an aching gasp, plunged them inside.

Shiro became entranced by the movement, curious to touch. With one hand continuously pumping Keith, he took the other and laid it over where Keith was opening himself up, stilling the urgent hand. Reluctantly, Keith withdrew, allowed Shiro to experiment himself.

“Can I?”

Keith nodded.

Slowly, consciously, Shiro pressed a finger against his hole, wet with slick, increasing his pressure and watching Keith’s anticipation. He pressed in, felt the searing warmth around his finger.

“Your—” Keith adjusted his shoulders. “Fingers are much bigger than mine.”

“Ready for another?”

“ _Yes_.”

Shiro complied, slipping in another digit and scissoring them, wide and probing. Keith responded well to the action, then encouraged Shiro to curl his fingers toward his pelvic wall. 

“Press up here,” he guided, one hand drifting down his stomach.

“Here?”

“A little more— _there_ ,” Keith keened, back arching and head thrown back. Shiro was both validated and curious about what the sensation was like. With more pressing and the addition of a third finger, Shiro felt movement around his digits, like something else was moving inside Keith.

“Uh, Keith,” Shiro’s breath hitched, the moving sensation sending a prickling electricity through him that played hopscotch down his vertebrae and swam circles around his pelvis.

“Those are the tentacles,” Keith said as he covered his face, at last overcome with such embarrassment that it meant he couldn’t face Shiro.

“Should I be concerned about them?” Shiro said, amazed at how the sensation was making him feel, all while trying and failing to comfort Keith. He ceased his stroking and tugged at Keith’s arms in hopes that he would show his face again; shame would not be welcome where they were tonight.

“No,” he said, lowering his walls. “It just means I’m close.”

At a snail’s pace, Shiro drew his fingers out and the tentacles followed, two thin tendrils that seemed to have a mind of their own. As they continued to snake around and chase after Shiro’s fingers, even after having breached the outside world, Shiro still wondered how he could make Keith feel good, how he could elevate his pleasure.

“Can I use my mouth?” Shiro asked, feeling bold.

Keith peeked out from the hand he was hiding behind. “You would do that?”

“Yes? Wait, is that weird?” Suddenly, he felt self-conscious and worried he had overstepped an unspoken cultural boundary.

“No it’s just,” Keith looked at him in awe. “I’ve never had a partner that wanted to do that.”

Thrilled that this was a new experience for both of them, Shiro responded by changing his position so he could kiss a trail down Keith’s chest, lazily stroke him a few more times, eventually reach his destination. While he was away the tendrils had slightly retracted, but they grew excited when his breath fanned out over Keith’s groin. (Shiro didn’t mean to keep thinking of Keith’s dad during their first time together, but he could not seem to ignore the achievements of his predecessor.) Then, at last dismissing the thought, he applied his mouth.

He pressed his tongue over his hole, sucking on the skin just below it, basking in the noises that came out of Keith, gratified by the way his claws worked crescent moons into his shoulders. Teasing him a little longer, he tried to understand the uniquely sweet taste of Keith’s perineum, working his tongue all the way back to know the salt of his sweat. He returned to the folds, sucked lightly on the hole and accepted Keith’s trembling and keening as a good sign. While he breached Keith with his tongue, Shiro took one of the exploratory electric tendrils between his fingers and ran it between them, inviting the other into his mouth as he sucked, surprised to enjoy the pulsing currents on his tongue.

Keith’s hand abruptly snaked into his hair, yanking _hard_. “Shiro!” he cried, voice incredibly thin. “I’m—!” 

“Do it,” Shiro said, then pushed his tongue in deeper.

“No, _no_ ,” came Keith’s begging reply, to which Shiro responded with record speed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away to check on Keith as urgently as possible. “Are you alright? I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I—”

Meeting his eyes, he witnessed a tear streaked face; Shiro’s gut dropped like overripe fruit from a dying tree. Keith looked completely wrecked, his breathing laboured and gaze distant. “It’s fine,” Keith corrected. “I’m fine. It was just too good and…” Collecting himself, Keith sat up to kiss Shiro, who was unconvinced and needed a physical reminder. “I want to feel you inside of me when you push me over the edge,” came Keith’s susurrous plea into Shiro’s ear, a sound that traveled like a freight train to his navel.

At that, Shiro felt a smile return to his face, relieved. As they scrambled over each other, reignited by their honest interest, Shiro rolled his hips against Keith’s, the friction between their naked lengths stealing the breath from his lungs.

“Wait,” Keith perked up. “We need protection.”

“Uhm,” Shiro blushed. “I brought stuff from home. Do you think that would work?”

“As long as it isn’t made from telenokav nervesatin—I have an allergy.”

“It is made from latex?” Shiro tried.

“That should be fine,” Keith nodded, then his voice dropped a register as he twisted his body in Shiro’s arms, positioned to go either way. Coyly, he gave a coquettish flutter of his eyelashes as he placed a hand on Shiro’s cheek in question. “How do you want me?”

Shiro turned Keith so that he was facing him again and sitting atop his lap, kissing his neck and pressing his face along the boundaries of their shared heat, smelling the musk of sweat under his arms. “I want to be able to see you,” he sighed, moved his head to meet Keith’s eyes. “I want to be able to kiss you as you fall apart under me.”

Keith melted against Shiro, moved and embarrassed by his frankness. When he could look in his eyes again, it was to give him a challenging stare.

“Like it on top, huh?” Keith drew a playful hand up Shiro’s chest, entangling it in his chest hair.

“I’m versatile,” Shiro laughed at his sass, laying him down on the bed and slipping away to look through the shelf in their shared closet where he had been storing the condoms and lube he’d brought from earth. It probably didn’t take more than twenty seconds to find them, but it felt like the fate of the universe was resting on his shoulders and he was letting hours pass by, helplessly looking onward.

“I’m back,” he announced, pleased to find Keith stroking himself, eyes closed in serene pleasure.

“Shiro,” Keith said as the bed dipped around where Shiro kneeled into it. “I love you.”

“I love you, Keith.” Shiro slipped between Keith’s legs, caging him with his arms as he fell onto his elbows to pepper Keith with blistering kisses. Nudging his legs apart more and more, Shiro made quick work of slipping on the condom, then held the lube in his hands judiciously.

“We won't need it,” Keith flushed, hiding behind his hands. Having figured as much, Shiro set aside the bottle for when they inevitably switched roles (something Shiro was looking forward to). 

It was clumsy. Shiro was excessive in his caution. Keith was tense and nervous. But they managed to come together in a union that rivaled the song of chapel bells in their belfry, or the commensalism of a patient oven and its loaf of freshly baked bread. Shiro thrust into Keith with meticulosity that researchers cultivated over years of study, Keith accepted him with mercy that bishops sought in lifelong prayer. 

Keith raked elongating claws in stripes down Shiro’s back, arching into the sensation more and more. Shiro felt himself slide in deeper as Keith wrapped his legs tighter around his trunk, in awe of Keith’s heat, his closeness, the same awe he felt when he flew a plane, or the first time he’d ever seen the full glory of the Milky Way at night.

“How,” Keith moaned underneath him. “How are you doing that—”

Shiro took it as a compliment, deciding to pick up the pace a notch. In truth, he wasn’t sure he would last much longer, not with Keith clenching around him and chanting his name, a fervent orison that only made Shiro want to give him more, give him everything. A slithering sensation overwhelmed him and Shiro took in stride the galvanizing sting of Keith’s tentacles stimulating him while inside.

He had to pause and catch his breath before he came prematurely. “One second,” Shiro said, and after a few deep breaths he took one of Keith’s legs and guided it over his shoulder, needing the physicality of a new position to distract him from his excitement for even a moment. This new adjusted angle seemed to bring them even closer, and when he thrusted forward again, Keith _sang_.

“ _There_!” He commanded. Shiro obeyed. On instinct, he brought his free hand to Keith’s bouncing cock, stroked it as he continued to aim for what was making Keith shiver and groan below him. “ _Shiro, I’m_ —”

It was well timed seeing as Shiro’s staccato rhythm and the electricity between them brought him to the edge. With their heads thrown back and their inhibitions thrown to the wind, he and Keith tumbled over the cliff together.

Likening his climax to a symphony was the only thing that made sense in the moment as it was conducted and exacerbated by Keith’s tightening around him, electrifying him and playing a dizzy chord throughout his body. He watched Keith chase his orgasm underneath him, pumping himself dry. 

Shiro pulled out, disposed of the condom, and found he was completed exhausted, his cheeks rosy, forehead glistening with sweat. Beside him, Keith was in the same boat, his stripes dark purple and his eyes bright yellow as they opened and closed in incredulous bliss.

They held each other for a long time afterward, checking the clock only to find out that they had missed the dinner bell. It was likely that someone had been sent to check in on them, and they jested for a long while that whoever it was likely heard their caterwauling and turned tail. When their joking faded into silence, Keith twisted his hands into Shiro’s white hair and sighed, kissed him on the nose and thanked him.

“You are the best thing that ever happened to me,” Keith told him honestly. “And I am a soldier who fought an ugly war and somehow emerged a prince. I’d do it ten times over again if it meant meeting you on the other side.”

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” Shiro said. “But I thank the stars that aligned to make it possible.”

In love and in each other’s arms, they fell into a lazy sleep.

*

The talks on Altea ended up being far more abbreviated than anticipated. Whether or not it was thanks to the antics of the Galra prince, his bodyguard, and their crash landing into the hearts of the Altean populace would be a point of contention that none could agree on until the Galra mothership made liftoff from Altean airspace.

Shiro had grown accustomed to his prosthetic as well as to the presence of Allura, her sharp wit and endless stories about Keith a comfort in his adjustment to Altea. They could spend hours talking, Shiro teaching Allura about Earth culture and Allura regaling Shiro with war stories about a younger, more brazen Keith and their antics as rebel fighters.

It wasn’t until his last week on Altea did she finally talk about Keith and their almost-marriage.

“I thought that marrying Keith meant our forces could ally in ways the universe had never known, and that it could serve as an example for other planets to follow. It wasn’t until my close friend Romelle pointed out that it was an archaic tradition and hollow echo to the empire itself. That and the fact I’d overlooked how Keith was not interested in women.” Allura’s voice was deep, easy to listen to for hours on end. “But you know, just because we almost married doesn’t mean I didn’t move on. For the sake of our friendship, our planets, and above all, _myself_.”

Allura’s words wormed into his head and then his heart. That night, he dreamt of an empty train station but still bumping into Adam. They said nothing to each other, and when they boarded two different trains, Shiro felt nothing but quiet solace as the train thrummed and left the station. He woke up with a relieved smile on his face.

As thanks, Shiro asked Keith to help him pick out a bouquet of flowers to thank Allura.

Besides Allura and Keith, Shiro ended up spending a lot of time with Krolia and Kolivan when they were around. He looked up to them and appreciated their patient tutelage, felt accepted among them in a way that he had not known on Daibazaal IV. It didn’t take losing an arm to do it, but everything that came after it.

When they had been loading up the ship on the morning of their departure, Shiro had gotten caught in the crossfire of a lively chat between the two of them while stacking supplies in the cargo hold. Krolia was on a roll discrediting a particular Altean minister that had given her hell throughout her interactions with the parliament, tearing apart his rhetoric and political theory.

“Perhaps the frustration stems from the crush you have on him,” Kolivan offered in a teasing cadence, tossing a particularly heavy box Krolia’s way so that her response would be undermined by the catch. Sure enough, her appalled reaction was muted by a laborious _oof_ as she caught the box.

“Kolivan,” she wheezed, flashing a nervous glance at Shiro, embarrassed to be called out like this in front of him. “I’d appreciate you keeping your mouth away from matters you don’t understand at all.”

“I understand,” Kolivan nodded, moving three boxes that stacked high enough to hide the audible smile in his voice. “I just think that he’s your type and you’re flustered because you don’t know what to do about it.”

“I will kill you,” Krolia warned quietly, mouth a flat line. Eyes flicking back to Shiro, he was just about to excuse himself when he thought of a good idea.

“Maybe you could try trust-bonding with him,” he offered. “It could change your relationship for the better.”

“Try what now?” Kolivan asked at the same time Krolia said, “Come again?”

“Trust-bonding?”

Silence.

“The Galra tradition?”

Incredulity. 

“Shiro,” Krolia said slowly, and a suspecting smile began to creep across her face. “There is no such thing.”

“What?” Shiro’s own voice sounded far away.

“I believe the young prince has pulled your leg,” Kolivan noted, hiding behind more boxes.

While frustration prickled in his chest, longing affection swiftly took its place. Of course it had been made up. Of course Shiro had fallen for it. But that didn’t make it any less real or effective.

“I have to go,” he said, unable to be in the presence of the people he had started to view as parental figures. Not when his goat had been gotten so badly. Kolivan and Krolia wished him luck, waved him off. Pulling his own newly minted tablet from his armor belt, he paged Keith and got his location, told him to meet him in the airfield courtyard as soon as possible.

Keith must have been in talks with the air traffic control tower because he was on the ground in no time at all. He jogged across the plain to meet Shiro in the middle of the courtyard, wiping the sweat from his brow.

“You know,” Shiro leaned his weight onto one leg, crossing his arms. “Lying about trust-bonding being a thing is actually the opposite of trust-bonding.” Keith cocked his head, confused.

“You mean you didn’t know?”

Disbelief overwhelmed him. “Do you mean to say that you lied about it and then assumed that I knew it was fake?”

“I thought you were playing along in a flirty way like I was trying to do!” A smile cracked his face.

Shiro grinned right back. “I was trying to respect your culture!” 

Keith burst into genuine laughter that pealed down the runway. It was contagious, and when Shiro pulled him in for an embrace, he basked in the mirthful shaking of the person in his arms.

“Will you ever be able to forgive me?” Keith asked, eyes wet with joy, hair whipping in the warm wind.

“It may take some time,” Shiro looked up at the glittering, clear blue sky, then down at Keith in his arms. “But I’m adaptable.”

 

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaahhhhh we did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! y'all thank you so so so much for sticking along for the ride. we made it !!!
> 
> i was going through a really rough spot at the beginning of writing this, and while things are still challenging, i am in a much better place as of right now. thank you all so much for your kind comments, your kudos, and all the rest. i am so grateful!
> 
> anyway! thank you again so much for reading. hope you have a wonderful day and are gearing up for season 8 woohoo!!!!
> 
> take care <3
> 
> -ranchboiii

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/ranchboiii)


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